


What Really Happened

by LaLicorneRose



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: A remedy for what just happened..., F/F, Fixing things, I Don't Even Know, If you only read one work by me, Ignoring What Just Happened, Madam Spellman - Freeform, No Incest, Polyamory, Saving the Coven, Self-Love, Slow Burn, Slow Burn Zelda Spellman/Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith, Trauma Acknowledged, bare with
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:09:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22429909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaLicorneRose/pseuds/LaLicorneRose
Summary: I just had to remedy this.We begin at the face off between Zelda Spellman and Lilith on the run. Mid-Part 3.
Relationships: Marie LaFleur/Zelda Spellman, Zelda Spellman/Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith
Comments: 214
Kudos: 379





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this assuages some things.

Chapter 1

“But you worshipped me.”

Never in the thousands of millions of years that she had existed alongside the earth would she have ever imagined it all coming to this. Begging a mere witch for asylum. As if the venerable Zelda Spellman could possibly save her. It was grasping at straws. It was humiliating, to say the least.

And she hated how pathetic she sounded. Letting those words slip from her lips because she knew, as well as Zelda knew, how wonderful it had felt. For those moments that Zelda had turned her prayers to Lilith had brought her more strength, more self-assurance than she had felt in centuries.

She had almost had it all. She had the throne, the power, the praise. It was all beginning, turning out all so nicely … until they had turned on her, questioned her authority, her credibility.

Lilith had not belonged in heaven, but she had not belonged in hell either.

So where was it, exactly, that she was meant to be?

Lucifer would do unspeakable things to her once he got his hands on her. She knew punishment at his hand and this would be far worse than all of the times before.

Undoubtedly it meant her life this time.

To no longer exist…sometimes she wondered if that might be better than whatever this was.

Zelda’s eyes were narrowed, smoke billowed from her lips as she stared at her incredulously. Coldly. “And what good did that do?”

Zelda was different, wasn’t she? Her words were more self-assured. They hurt and Lilith cursed her weakened constitution, blamed her too long time spent in Mary Wardwell’s skin for the sharp pain that jabbed at her side when Zelda spoke hurtfully.

Zelda was near to her, so very near. Her green eyes were cold, the color of muted autumn.

They were in a standoff.

“You would turn me away when I could help you?” Lilith dared to challenge, sensing the defiant heat that came off Zelda. Lilith’s eyes dropped to her crimson lips that had formed into a tight line. For there was something she knew of Zelda Spellman, something she could play upon to appeal to her. It felt dirty, this. Resorting to a bit of seduction.

Zelda huffed. “Help? You’ve done nothing but cause trouble. The longer the Dark Lord is confined the less power we have and you proved futile when we asked for your help and guidance.”

“Don’t you think, Zelda, that I’ve been diminished myself?” Lilith dared to sneer – for couldn’t anyone understand her delicate position? -, for if she could not stay here, she was not certain what it was she might do. A witch alone was unsafe – even if she was the mother of demons and highly revered. Without heaven or hell behind her, she was nothing.

This seemed to cause Zelda pause. She lifted the cigarette to her lips and inhaled delicately, looking. Searching. “I have a house full of witches who are here to help. I hardly have…”

Lilith felt her shoulders sagging, felt just how tired she was. Her soul was heavy, the body she was using was tight and exhausted. “I was never against you.” Lilith felt a strange throbbing in her forehead. Her hand lifted to press against the skin she found there. Mary’s body was becoming familiar to her. “I wanted to help you and your Coven when you called upon me and now I ask you to let me. He will…kill me if I... But I-I believe we can defeat him if we work together. I believe we can find a solution if you…” Her voice was soft at this admission, at this pathetic plea, this pathetic acknowledgement of her predicament.

Zelda’s brow creased, her hardness momentarily broken.

They stared at one another. Zelda’s eyes dropped from Lilith’s eyes to her lips and then returned to her gaze. She lifted the cigarette to her lips and inhaled and on the exhale, she stood back on her heel. “There’s a room. Upstairs.”

Lilith felt a wave of nauseous relief wash over her.

“I don’t trust you. Not yet. But if you prove to be useful I will allow you to stay on.” Zelda was doing her best to create a boundary around herself. This Lilith could understand.

“Yes.” Lilith conceded, disappointed in herself for being so overjoyed by this begrudging acceptance into a moment of safety.

“There you are, I thought we might have a night cap in the…oh…” An unfamiliar voice spoke from the doorway to the parlor of the Spellman home.

Lilith’s eyes flashed to the sumptuous woman holding two tumblers of whiskey. Lilith knew her at an instant, knew just who she was and felt what it was that passed between her and Zelda. For Zelda’s cheeks had grown imperceptibly redder by this woman’s entrance.

“Yes, I think that would be nice.” Zelda turned to face the other woman. “Marie, this…this is Lilith. She will be staying on with us. For the time being.”

Marie stepped forward and handed Zelda her glass of whiskey before coming before Lilith. Her eyes were deep and mysterious and they looked Lilith over with intense contemplation, as if she could read into the very depths of her being. But it was Lilith who had a world of knowledge that this woman could never have.

“Lilith.” Marie repeated the name and Lilith winced. Marie took her hand in her own, held it tightly and a current of energy passed between them. Marie was attempting to know her. Lilith blocked the energy. “I am Mambo Marie Lafleur and it is a pleasure to welcome another witch into this home. Especially one of your prestige and knowledge.”

Lilith stiffened at this and took back her hand. Marie made it sound as if she owned this home alongside with the Spellmans, as if she had already made herself one of them. This was certainly not true.

“Please, _ma chère_ , join us for a drink. Any friend of Zelda’s is a friend of mine.” Marie invited warmly but there was something beneath it that Lilith did not trust.

Her eyes shifted to Zelda and Zelda looked neither warm nor cold to the suggestion. Zelda had lifted the whiskey to her lips and drank of it, needing it.

What was this?

Lilith smiled forcibly, widely. “No, no thank you. I…I wouldn’t want to intrude. I have some things to attend to, at any rate. Perhaps another evening.”

And she noticed a look of relief cross over Zelda’s being. Zelda who stood frozen and uncertain. Zelda whose curls hung perfectly about her face and whose pouty lips sought refuge in her drink and cigarette.

She would not look at Lilith.

Marie nodded, turned back to Zelda and Lilith watched a comfortable look pass between the two women, a hand at the small of Zelda’s back as they turned to retreat to the parlor. For their night caps.

Lilith grimaced.

Saved and yet again unwelcomed.

* * *

She had to make quick work of it.

Lucifer would not think of her yet. She had some time on her hands and she had a weakness, a soft spot for the true owner of her body.

The fire was blazing at the hearth, this Lilith could see. And there was the outline of the woman, kneeling before the flames. She rocked back and forth, needing comfort, needing guidance, assurance. Lilith knew what it was to need this. Lilith knew what it was to be alone and forgotten in the world.

Mary clasped at a Bible, though Lilith could tell that her eyes were not on its unholy pages. No, Mary was lost in thought, lost in something else. A remembrance perhaps, thoughts of hell, of death, of pain.

Lilith felt it, too. As if their bodies had never actually separated. She wondered if she would be cursed to know and to feel all that Mary did, to have these ridiculous emotions that would catch her off guard, knock her off her feet in moments when she wished she could just be strong. It was Mary’s humility, Mary’s kindness and goodness that had gotten to her.

And what had she given Mary? Fear and nightmares and severed ties. She had taken Adam from her. A good man. A man who was so very, very different from the men that Lilith had known, still knew.

Mary was broken and she had broken her.

The enchantment flowed quietly from her lips, weaving a web of protection and comfort, of healing and consolation about the cabin in the woods. Lucifer would know to come to Mary. He would know just how to get to Lilith, but she would ward him off the best she knew how.

She would protect Mary at all costs.

Lilith watched as the spell worked its magic deep into every fiber of the house. She could sense when it overcame Mary, when she sat back and the Bible fell from her hands, slipping to the floor. Mary wrapped her arms about herself, a momentary look of relief from her anguished mind passed over her face.

Lilith turned, retreated through the woods, careful to watch out for henchmen or other monstrosities that might catch her scent. She would not be able to pass so easily from place to place now. Not with Lucifer free as he was, even still within Blackwood.

She thought of how it was almost poetic that Zelda’s tormentor should now house hers.

Zelda had always deserved better than Faustus Blackwood. The disgusting parasite that he was.

Lilith felt a wave of relief wash over her when she reached the safety of the Spellman property. They had enchanted a magical wall of protection about it, securing it against outside threats.

Lilith was welcomed in its confines, thankfully.

She trudged forward towards the house, lights still illuminating the windows even in the late-night hour. She entered into the front door, heard laughter coming from the parlor. It was Zelda’s laugh that made Lilith pause for a moment. She had never heard the woman laugh before and it was enchanting, beautiful, melodic even.

Marie had given her that. Laughter.

Lilith felt another pang at her chest as she moved to the stairs, to ascend to the room which Zelda had left for her. At the tip top of the stairs, high above all else in the home. It had a small cot and mirror and a little dresser. Windows looked out to all four corners of the Spellman property. She glanced through each, enchanting an extra layer of protection about her and then sat upon the bed.

She had plans to make, for if she did not come through for Zelda she would certainly die.

And she wanted, more than anything, to come through for Zelda.

After all, they would be stronger together.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Lilith took to the Spellman library. Delighting in the smell of the aged books and the quiet. She needed space to think, to collect her thoughts. She sat hunched over the books that she had carefully selected from the Spellman’s vast collection.

There was a certain comfort in studying the ancient texts, in remembering all that had come before, teachings she had forgotten, let slip through the cracks of her memory. If only she could pinpoint the missing information, the missing link in all of this mess.

Her hand came to rest upon the page and her eyes were drawn to Mary Wardwell’s lily-white skin. She examined the lines in her fingers, the depth and breadth of them. The way the lines crinkled and made strange geometric patterns when she closed her hand. The shapes shifted, changed when she opened her hand. The skin was old, but not as old as what truly lived beneath the surface.

She thought of Marie’s hand. How it had grasped her so softly, so knowingly. The touch of her dark skin had elicited the memory that had taunted her through the night spent restlessly, sleeplessly on the impossibly uncomfortable cot in the little dusty attic room. Her prison cell.

Her eyes slid closed.

She could almost feel the warmth of it creeping up her arms. The sun shining so brightly against her naked flesh. It had been so long since she remembered, since she had recalled.

There was the gurgling of a spring, the sound of wind in the trees, a bird calling out. Nature all about her, wisdom buried deep in its fibers that had imbued her with knowledge. Given to her freely, anything that she wished to know.

And there was him. Tall, muscular, strong, his skin the color of the night sky that they laid beneath together freely, openly. Their bodies complimented one another. Where one was round, the other flat, where one protruded, the other was convex, one light and one dark.

But their minds were equal. They were equals amongst all things and they knew of the world and the world knew of them.

But things had changed.

The parts that had seemed complimentary became points of contention between them. He had not liked her knowledge, her knowing.

It was her first exile, driven from the safety of that world that she barely remembered now. Innocence taken from her, stripped away, leaving her alone in an unforgiving world of shame and humiliation.

The pain of it forced her eyes opened. She never thought of then. She wasn’t sure why she would think of it now, if only because of Marie’s presence. There was something in it.

Her eyes skimmed the page before her, searching. Searching for the answer, for anything that might help. But nothing like this had come before. Lucifer had always existed. The heavens and earth and hell had rested in balance.

And Lilith had no place in any of the realms. It had been made abundantly clear to her.

Her fingers dug into her hair as she slumped over the book, eyes tired. Weary from reading. The pieces remained unsorted. There was an answer, but it felt far away and distant just then.

She felt she should have had some sort of answer ready before promising Zelda that she could help, for the further she wracked her mind, the further away she felt from any sort of answer or solution. She worried for her safety, for if she did not deliver then she would be exiled again to wonder alone _again_ …

She could always feel Zelda watching her. Uneasy by her presence in the Spellman home.

Lilith watched Zelda in return. Watched as she sat late into the evenings drinking and smoking with that Marie Lafleur. The Voodoo witch from New Orleans. Zelda was enraptured by her, taken by all that she said, all that she had to teach about her spiritual knowledge, her own brand of witchcraft. Zelda held onto every word.

Zelda, who had been such a devout follower of the Church of Night before it had all collapsed. Her religion had been taken from her so it seemed natural, Lilith supposed, for her to become interested in something so far removed from all that she had known.

Marie Lafleur certainly offered Zelda a respite from the mess they found themselves in.

And she supposed Zelda deserved a respite, for Zelda had been through much in the past few months. She spent her days now at the academy trying to keep the Coven together, searching for what it was they should all believe in.

Lilith wanted it to be her. Lilith wanted to be believed in. And Zelda had believed in her…if only for a moment.

The library door opened and Lilith looked up.

The very woman she had been thinking of appeared in the doorway, looking a bit surprised by Lilith’s presence. “Oh…I didn’t…” Zelda’s voice came short, halting.

“Quite alright. I was just looking through some texts.” Lilith dragged her fingers through her hair and motioned for Zelda to enter. It was her library after all.

They had not faced one another since the first evening. It was odd to be alone with Zelda, who stayed strangely in the doorway as if hovering between the thought of staying or going. She finally thought better of it and entered, moving towards a specific section of books in the corner. “I have a potion class to prepare for and seem to have forgotten several ingredients.” Zelda hummed breezily, as if she needed to explain her presence. It felt quite as if she had been purposefully avoiding Lilith since her arrival. Lilith could sense her discomfort.

Lilith nodded her head and a book slid forward on the bookcase. “Might this be what you were looking for?” She ventured without looking up from the text she had returned to.

She sensed Zelda reach for the book, flip through to the table of contents, scanning. “Yes. Yes, this is it.” Zelda reluctantly mumbled and then turned as if she might leave.

Lilith prepared for the woman to depart, to leave her yet again. But Zelda turned slightly on her heels. She clasped the book to her chest, as if in need of protection.

“Thank you.” Zelda spoke the words succinctly and clearly.

Lilith looked up at her, an odd little smile playing at her lips. “No need to thank me.” Then she sighed, rubbed at her forehead. “Besides, I haven’t done anything yet.”

Zelda pursed her lips and tilted her head as if to agree with this statement.

They stayed in this strange moment for a second too long. Zelda was looking at Lilith, studying her.

“Why is it that you kept Mary Wardwell’s body?” Zelda ventured to ask.

Lilith shrugged. “I quite like it.” For how could she explain that the body buried beneath it was nothing more than broken, decaying flesh. That she had been made hideous with each moment spent away from Eden. That her body had once been soft and subtle and taut and gorgeous like Zelda’s. But now she preferred the outer skin of someone else, for her true self was grotesque and unsightly. “She’s quite beautiful, wouldn’t you say?”

Zelda’s brow creased at this, flustered for a brief moment. Lips pursed as if they might say something but no sound came.

“Well, I thought so anyway.” Lilith sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Women of a certain age are never given their due when it comes to being beautiful, but I find that society has gotten this wrong. Zelda?”

And here Zelda’s eyes snapped up, came to rest upon hers. Held.

“Why don’t you have a seat instead of standing there? I won’t bite.” _Hard, anyway_.

Zelda rolled her eyes. “I have lessons to plan, I have a house full of witches, a Coven that…”

Lilith nodded towards the chair across from her.

Zelda came silently to sit across from her. She let the book of spells rest in her lap and reached for a little ivory box upon the desk between them. She lighted a cigarette placed properly in its holder and sat back, smoking because it was a good way to place distance. A distraction, a reason for her to stay with Lilith. An indication that this was a momentary pause.

Lilith studied Zelda’s face as she sat smoking across from her. “Marie seems quite lovely, charming really, isn’t she?”

“Yes.” Zelda agreed as she tapped off ash delicately.

“You trust her.” It was a statement. An observation that pained Lilith.

Zelda’s eyes came to rest on Lilith again. “She has proven trustworthy.”

“And her teachings of the other ways have enthralled you.”

“She has stretched my mind in new ways. Ways I never thought…” Zelda huffed. “Well, I don’t feel I have to answer to _you_ about any of this.”

“No. No, I suppose you do not.” Lilith agreed, delighted that they could have this at least. Delighted that Zelda might open herself, if only just a little. It meant that Zelda could possibly trust her again if she might only…

“You don’t have a plan.” Zelda’s voice had gone cold again.

Lilith’s chest sank. Zelda held all the cards and Lilith needed to earn her trust, her confidences. It would be futile to act as if she had come with solution in hand. “No.”

Zelda looked away from her. Disappointment shielded behind her cigarette. She lifted a hand to her forehead, as if exhausted. She was growing weaker. Lilith could sense it. Her brow furrowed in concern.

“How did this all become such a mess?” Zelda whispered. “If you…if you hadn’t come…”

“Something else would have happened. Something else would have started it all.”

“Did you know?” Zelda’s voice had grown strong again, her weakness hidden away behind her indignance.

Lilith shook her head, coldly laughed. “If I had _known_ , do you think I would have led her through it? Sabrina has no right…no right to that throne. Even if she is Lucifer’s half-mortal child. It doesn’t make it right.”

Here Zelda nodded in agreement. “She doesn’t belong on the throne of Hell.”

“I believe that it is Lucifer’s brilliant plan to unite the realms through her. If she can bring the mortals into our world then we would have dominion over all. He wishes to conquer the world using her.”

“She doesn’t yet understand it. She’s only a child.” The maternal concern in Zelda’s voice was striking. The weariness returned.

“No. And I do not wish to serve at her side. To play second fiddle, yet again.” Lilith admitted. “I have stood by Lucifer’s side for far too long, doing his biding, playing the subservient role, demeaning myself again and again…to now answer to a _sixteen_ -year-old, a half-witch who hardly even knows what it is to be a witch…it’s…” Lilith felt her voice leave her, for she could hardly believe she was uttering these words, least of all to Sabrina’s aunt who was still wary of her.

Zelda smoked, watched her through a hazy blue-cloud. Something had changed at her admission. Something in Zelda’s gaze.

“I think you…I think you know what that is.” Lilith dared to surmise what it was hidden behind Zelda’s softened gaze.

“I’m not like you.” Zelda spoke firmly, dismissively. The words grazed her skin like a thousand little daggers.

Lilith missed the laughter she had heard from Zelda in the parlor the night she had arrived.

“What you did with Faustus Blackwood…”

Zelda sat forward and crushed out her cigarette rather roughly. “I don’t believe that is any of your business. Now.” Zelda stood rather quickly, taking the book up in her protective grasp again. “I have classes to prepare for. And I feel that you have some work to do. _Especially_ if you wish to earn your keep.” Her green eyes glistened frostily.

Lilith sneered when Zelda turned, listened as her heels clicked their steady retreat from the library. She watched, through lowered lids, the sway of Zelda’s ample hips in that decadently tight pencil skirt and the fine line of her calves until she disappeared out the door.

“Cold. Yet so beautiful.” Lilith breathed and turned back to the texts littered across the desk.

_Think._

* * *

Hilda had thought to bring her some tea and biscuits in the library. Lilith had sensed something in Hilda, an ashen sheen to her face. Was the magic flowing from them so quickly? She had attempted to ask Hilda what it was, but Hilda had bashfully brushed her off, fled from her.

Must everyone be afraid of her? She supposed she had earned that privilege as the Mother of Demons.

It was well past midnight when Lilith emerged from her hidden cove. No closer to a solution. She walked quietly through the halls of the Spellman Mortuary.

Silent, save for light laughter flowed to her like music.

Ah.

She paused outside the doorway to the parlor, their voices rising to her ears.

“…but I worry that…”

“Zelda, _ma belle_ , you do nothing but worry all day. Perhaps you should allow yourself some time to relax, to not worry so much. The world has not fallen down around us.”

“Yet.” Zelda breathed, but there was mirth in her voice. “Oh, Marie.” Her voice was different.

If Lilith moved ever so slightly she could make it out, Zelda with feet propped up before the fire drink in hand, looking so much less guarded than she had that afternoon in the library. And Marie had her other hand in her own, pressing the pads of her thumbs into Zelda’s palm. Zelda’s head rolled back, delighting in the sensation that Marie was giving to her.

“I shouldn’t have let her stay.” Zelda whispered and Lilith’s chest twisted in a terrible pain.

“She is an asset to us, Zelda. She has great wisdom of the past. Don’t you think, _ma chère_ , that she has suffered enough at the hands of others?”

Zelda’s eyes came open and she looked, squinted, at Marie. “What do you know of her?”

Marie’s shoulder came up, shrugged. “Nothing more than what is spoken of, the stories from certain sects of Christianity.”

Zelda laughed. “That hogwash.”

“There is some truth to it, Zelda. Just as there is some truth to Satanism.”

Zelda sobered. “I suppose that is true.”

“Besides,” Marie’s fingers slid up Zelda’s forearm and Zelda’s eyes fluttered for a brief moment. She was so taken by this woman – and Lilith could hardly blame her. For she had suffered and Marie was like a fresh breath of air. All kindness and comfort to Zelda’s hardened coldness – which seemed to melt away by the second in Marie’s presence. “I feel no ill-will from her. And I have a good sense about these things.”

Zelda took Marie’s hand in her own, stopping her care for a moment. “She could lead him here. That is the last thing I want…”

“We will be protected. That is why you called the witches to aid you.”

“They can’t possibly be stronger than the Dark Lord.” Zelda’s eyes shimmered in the firelight.

Marie lifted Zelda’s hands to her lips and kissed the back of it. “But perhaps she can be.”

Lilith felt the wind knocked from her lungs. She could no more look, no more wanted to hear these words, spoken so kindly, so strangely. She pressed herself back against the wall in the hallway, loathe to admit to the tears that clung to her eyes.

She pressed her hand – Mary’s hand – across her lips to stifle the sob. Damn this body. Damn her weakness.

There would be no way in which she might possibly be able to defeat the Dark Lord. Marie had no idea what it was she spoke of…

…and yet Lilith felt another part of herself surge back into existence. The same sensation she had felt when she had heard Zelda’s prayers to her. A little piece of her had been restored.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The solarium was warm in the light of day. The windows sweated; the plants stretched upwards to trail the path of the sun.

Her fingers rubbed upon the leaf of a calathea plant, enthralled by the painted leaves, the pinkish purple of its underbelly.

Hilda’s plants were gorgeous. Lilith could almost hear the buzz of them, the natural vibrations so finely in tune with one another that it rang in her ears like a symphony. The plants she remembered. The plants would always come back to her, the brush of leaves against her cheeks, the grass beneath her bare feet.

These well-kept plants had called to her from her library dungeon. Her eyes needed the verdant greens, the brilliant hues of the flowers blooming beauteously about her. There was something in this. She just couldn’t remember.

She leaned forward, watched as a tiny, tiny little pink ladybug made its way across the dirt of the calathea, heading straight towards the plant, determined to tangle in its vines. The pink of the bug magnified, glowed as it took to the green of the plant.

“Perhaps, _ma biche_ , you might wish to care for that plant.”

Lilith twirled about, having not expected her to interrupt her contemplation of nature. “Oh, no. No.” Lilith shook her head, lowered her eyes away from the gorgeous Haitian woman before her. “I wouldn’t know the first thing about caring for a plant. Best to leave it to Hilda.”

She could feel Marie’s eyes upon her. Studying her. She felt strangely self-conscious under the scrutiny of this woman who felt both powerful and powerless. For she had no witch powers.

But she was a seer.

There was a serene calmness to her presence.

Lilith resented it.

She clasped her hands, began to wonder in a half-circle about Marie who stood firmly rooted in her place. “What, exactly, is it that you’re doing here?” Lilith asked.

Marie smiled, laughed at this. “I have lived alone, hidden away in New Orleans for so long, my Lilitu.” The name sent a shiver racing down Lilith’s spine. She looked to Marie, looked into her dark, knowing eyes. “The world is so full of energies which overcome me. I sensed something in young Prudence and Ambrose when they appeared to me. The cloud that lingered in their wake left me unsettled for days. I could not ignore the sinister darkness I felt and I knew something terrible was happening. I’ve had visions and knew that I needed to be here, to help ward off the darkness.”

Lilith squinted at this marvelously elegant woman before her. “Visions, hmm?” Perhaps if Marie had seen something, she might prove useful.

“Feelings, really. Sensations overcome me. They lead me to the places and people who need me most.” Marie charmingly smiled. “What I sense of you, _ma biche_ , is that you may know more than you think.”

Lilith’s brow furrowed at this, she felt herself contract. “The Dark Lord had plans I did not know of…I was blindsighted.” Lilith insisted, pressed a pothos leaf between two fingers. The sensation of life surged beneath her fingers.

Marie’s head tilted. “I do believe you, _ma biche_.”

Lilith felt her lungs expand fully for the first time in ages, as if she had not breathed for days, weeks, months, years, a lifetime. Her eyes fell to Marie, regarding her. Not trusting her blind faith in her seeming abilities. “And what is it that you know of me, Mambo Marie Lafleur? Voodoo Priestess from Haiti. You hale from a long line of seers, do you not?” Lilith’s fingers trailed down the vine, to the last of the newly sprouting leaves.

Marie’s beautiful lips curled up into another smile. Had Zelda kissed those lips? Lilith ventured to wonder.

“I know nothing that you do not.” Marie answered cryptically.

Lilith forced her cheeks upwards, teeth bared in a strange smile. She felt herself laughing. “Have you come to be the savior of this _little_ situation? The band-aid to heal all the wounds? Save our little Zelda and her fledgling Coven?”

Marie’s amusement waned at these remarks. “Zelda is a strong woman who has been through much and will flourish under her own direction.” The words stung at Lilith. “I am merely a guide, a sounding board for her now. Until she can get her feet planted firmly on the ground.”

Lilith scowled, having run her finger over a sharp edge of a succulent. “I’ve seen you with her. I’ve seen what it is you so like to guide. She is a marvelous beauty, after all.”

Marie did not bat an eyelash. “She is so much more than that. As I know you are aware.”

Lilith narrowed her eyes at Marie, feeling as if she were in a standoff with this woman. This woman whom did not know her, and yet seemed to know everything about her.

Marie’s hand was upon her wrist. “I mean you no ill-will. Both you and Zelda have been through much. As I am sure you are aware, it takes a matter of time to heal. I do feel that you can be of service to this process, though. Perhaps for the both of you.”

Lilith felt a strong sensation pulsing from Marie’s fingertips. It seeped deep into her being. “H-how?” She hated the weak way in which she _needed_ to know. How? How to help Zelda. How might she prove to her that she was worthy…

Marie studied her face, the pair of them so very close to one another. Lilith could feel the peaceful calmness of the other woman, could sense the uplifted frequencies bouncing off her skin. Marie’s eyes searched Lilith’s and Lilith felt so very small. Smaller than she had ever felt.

“You have so much goodness inside of you. But you must find it, _ma biche_. You have been wronged for centuries.” Pain clamored through Lilith’s being at the truth which Marie dared to speak. “The answer is there inside of you. It’s always been. If you look hard enough.”

White flashes of light blurred Lilith’s vision. The heat of the sun burned at her skin.

_Goodness_. No one had ever equated her with _goodness_. She was the Mother of Demons, the mistress of Satan and the dark moon.

Lilith pulled her hand away from Marie’s grasp. She blinked her eyes rapidly, a smile widening her lips again. “How very poetic.” She quipped, unable to reconcile the sensation that was warming her insides with the coldness she knew.

Marie smiled sadly at her.

“Marie, I was wondering if you might…oh.” Zelda had rounded the corner from the kitchen, book in hand, cigarette holder in the other, eyes wide upon the discovery of the two women in their stand-off before her.

“What is it, _ma chérie_?” Marie turned fully to Zelda.

Zelda’s lips pursed. “It’s nothing, I…what is this?”

“I happened upon Lilith. We were getting to know one another.” Marie explained easily, letting her hand come to rest upon Zelda’s lower back, turning to smile kindly at Lilith.

Lilith watched the action fixatedly. Wondered if Zelda felt the same overwhelming sense of calmness when Marie touched her as well.

The anxious crease of Zelda’s brow did not abate at the touch, however. Zelda’s shoulders stayed rigid.

What was it about Lilith that put her so on edge?

Zelda smoked, eyes shifting from Lilith to look upon Marie. “I found that book…” She held up said item. “Hilda’s made some tea and biscuits in the parlor and I wondered if we might…” Zelda glanced out of the corner of her eyes at Lilith.

“Of course, _ma chérie_.” Marie took the book from Zelda’s hands. Their eyes met for a brief moment and then Marie turned, made leave of them.

Zelda did not follow after Marie. She squared her shoulders, as if she had to brace herself to speak alone with Lilith. “Have you managed to come up with any solutions?” She questioned. Uncertainly, coldly.

Lilith shook her head, looked to the calathea again. The ladybug was sitting upon the leaf. It felt as if it were looking at her. Just as Zelda was. Lilith glanced to the red head, smiled coolly at her. “Your girlfriend seems confident in my abilities though.”

She watched as Zelda’s cheeks flushed. “She’s not my girlfriend. That’s ridicu…it’s…” Zelda halted her flustered protestations and shook her head. Her fist clinched tightly at her side. “I do not share these confidences.”

The words stung, punctured the way Lilith’s fingernails sliced into the juicy flesh of a leaf she had unknowingly taken into her hand. “Why is it, Zelda, that you so hate me?”

Zelda’s eyebrow twitched, her only tell that she was at all perturbed by the question. “Hate?” Zelda laughed, lifted the cigarette to her lips to inhale. Smoke spewed from her lips as she spoke. “I do not _hate_ you. I simply don’t know where you stand, Lilith. You came into Sabrina’s life and lied to us about who you were. You guided her down this treacherous path, practically handed her to the Dark Lord…”

“I would not have done so if I had known!” Lilith snapped.

Zelda paused, cigarette holder shaking in its frozen ascent to her lips. Her eyebrow rose, fell. The cigarette met her lips, puffing, unevenly. Upset.

Lilith let her hand fall from the plants. “I heard you.” She dared to whisper, finding a prickly cactus plant to fixate on. She let a needle press against the pad of her finger.

“Heard me what?” Zelda snipped after Lilith took to the cactus and seemed to let the thought fall away.

Lilith looked up to Zelda, looked into her eyes. “Before your dark baptism. When you questioned the Dark Lord in the night. When you called to me for guidance. Do you remember?”

Zelda’s cheeks warmed at this. How delicate her skin was, how it showed everything. “You never answered…”

“You didn’t look closely enough.” Lilith held her gaze. Looked into those emerald eyes, enchanted by them. “I heard you, Zelda. I wanted…”

Zelda breathed in smoke. “But I signed my name in the Book of the Beast as I was supposed to and no one stopped me.”

Lilith needed her to hear, needed her to know. She wanted, _needed_ to be trusted. “The Dark Lord particularly feared you. He needed you to sign. He needed to keep you in fear. I knew, though. I knew that one day you would break through. It wasn’t your time then, but I have stayed at your side for all these years. You must know…”

Zelda shook her head, almost imperceptibly at first until she was adamantly shaking her head. “No.” Tears clung at her eyelashes and Lilith longed to reach for her, but as she stepped forward to do so Zelda stepped backwards.

They stared at one another. Lilith’s skin so warm, fingers pulsing with a need to reach, to touch, but knowing that it was not for that moment.

Zelda broke their eye contact, rubbed a finger over her forehead. “I should…”

Lilith lowered her eyes, nodded.

“You…you could…join us, if you would like?” Zelda’s voice sounded foreign.

Lilith shook her head. She did not want to sit across from Zelda and Marie as Marie lightly touched and fussed with Zelda when she, herself, could not even briefly comfort the red head. How her arms longed to.

No, she would stay in the solarium because it was warm and there was something on the edge of her mind. Something that felt as if it might reveal itself to her if she stayed amongst the plants for a moment longer.

“No, thank you. Go on. Go on to your Voodoo Queen.” Lilith turned from Zelda.

She felt Zelda angrily part her lips to speak, but then think better of it. Instead she turned on her heels and clicked away from Lilith, leaving nothing more than a trail of smoke and the scent of her tantalizing perfume that left a hint of gardenias and jasmine swirling about the already floral scented air.

* * *

The calathea sat in the eastern facing window – for Lilith had made certain in a book of common house plants that this would be best. She had adopted the plant for herself, unable to part from it. It brought a sense of peace with it, a remembrance of something old and familiar.

She surveyed the leaves, enthralled by their colors. The intricacies of each petal.

It added life to the barren attic room, made it seem less depressing.

And it belonged to her and her alone now. To have, to own something of her own…

Lucifer had never allowed her this simple pleasure. What was hers had always been his. Since she had stumbled helplessly through the barren wilderness, naked and alone, bruised and hungry. Until she came upon him and he had nursed her back to health after she had repaired him.

She owed him her life – owed him for taking her out of the wilderness. For hadn’t he?

But there was something before that – a whole lifetime before that which she could not grasp.

She looked at the curve of a leaf, a palm opened upwards. It reminded her of life springing forth from her very being. The feeling was so strong, pulsed through her so fervently that she let the leaf fall away from her. Overcome.

She had produced life. She had produced multitudes, had housed and loved and owned all things.

She remembered. Fleeting moments of clarity, of being respected and of showing love and of creating.

There was the distant sound of a gunshot. It came from far away and yet she had heard it so very clearly.

She sensed, she took stock of what it was that might have occurred. Was Mary hurt? But she could not sense that Mary was harmed.

It had not come from the house, yet it had Zelda’s fleeting magic etched in its vibrations.

And Hilda…Hilda was undetectable.

Hilda.

The sound of shovel striking dirt came. Then again and again.

Lilith descended from her tower, moved through the house, descended the left side of the long front staircase and through the front foyer and out the door.

She stood on the front porch, watching as the shovel was expertly driven into the ground by a leopard print clad red head. Ah, the Cain pit. But it would not be strong enough now, would it?

Lilith walked forwards, across the crunchy gravel.

Zelda was crying as she drove the shovel into the dirt. Messy tears smeared her mascara. She was startled when she looked up and found Lilith watching her.

“Let me.” Lilith stepped forward and took the shovel from Zelda’s tight grasp. She looked to the right and saw Hilda’s mutant arachnid form dead and bloody laying on the ground. She should have known – Hilda’s face had been so ashen. It was an early symptom, a sign of such an infestation. If only Hilda had let her help instead of running away…

Zelda wiped ungracefully at her eyes with her coat sleeve. “You needn’t do…”

Lilith began shoveling, digging deep, searching for signs of magic, hoping that with each strike of the shovel that she might sense it. But the pit was static, in slumber. There was no sensation to it at all. She did not allow Zelda to see the concern that crossed her mind. Instead she dug until there was a hole large enough to fit Hilda inside of. She sunk the shovel into the earth and with Zelda’s assistance, they rolled Hilda into the pit together.

“It’s not going to work. It’s not…it’s not strong enough.” Zelda whispered, voice strangled.

Lilith let her hands press into the dirt, closing her eyes. There was a remembrance of creating mountains and forests and rivers and animals in her fingers. She imbued the dirt with these remembrances.

She stood up, brushed dirt from her hands.

They stood side-by-side at the edge of the pit.

Lilith’s hand sought Zelda’s. In Zelda’s grief, she allowed this.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The moon was waxing high up in the sky, casting its half-light down upon the earth. The forest was still about her, the earth quiet in the starry, cloudless night.

But Lilith’s eyes were not focused on the heavens, but were rather cast downward.

She stared at the Cain pit. Searching for some sign that it had lurched back to life.

Still nothing.

Her dreams had been so vivid.

She usually did not sleep, found it impossible to abate the raging sensations that raced through her body. The fear that settled deep within her that if she might close her eyes, if she were to escape to the netherworld of dreams, that he would find her.

So that she stayed alert, awake at all times.

Only Mary Wardwell’s body was not as accustomed to this high state of arousal. It wearied, it longed for rest.

But there had been something in the calathea upon her windowsill, the thought of Zelda’s hand clasped in her own, that had lulled her into vulnerably closing her eyes and drifting off.

She dreamt of him.

She could sense his presence before her, the vision was so strong that she believed it to be real. He sat upon the edge of her bed in the cold attic room, looking just as he had the first time she had come across him in the woods.

He had such deceptively kind eyes.

Why had she ever trusted him?

His hand came forward, reached for her. She had flinched, backed away from him. But it was a simple brush of his fingers against her cheek. So light, fluttery, kind. The touch held no malice, his thumb stroking at her cheek gently, touching her kindly as he once had.

Her body had slacked, given into him for perhaps he had come to apologize, perhaps he would release her now…

His palm rested on her cheek, his eyes seeking hers, an unreadable smile pulling at his lips. Fingers brushed lazily down until his fingers clasped firmly, tightly about her chin, moving her head from left to right, as if inspecting her.

And then his strong grasp was tight about her neck. His smile blossomed into something maniacal, sinister.

She gasped for breath, hands moving to push at him but he held tight.

He leaned down, so very close to her, close enough that she had felt the heat of his breath against her ear. “You belong to me.”

Something surged to life, a blinding white light overcame her and she pushed roughly at the apparition.

“No!” The word was forceful, was screamed loudly out into the night and she found herself sitting straight up in bed, hands extended forward into dead, empty air.

It had only been a dream. Nothing more.

She’d padded through the silent Spellman home, afraid to return to the false sense of comfort found in sleep. Out, out into the uncertain, unsafe night because it felt as if the forest had been calling to.

It was the pit she had wondered towards, hoping…

There was no sign of Hilda.

The ground beneath her feet retained its static quality. She knelt down, pressed a hand against the soil. She thought of the great blinding white light that still vibrated in her eyes. The sensation spread outwards; she could track the light as it raced from her eyes down her arm. The soil, where she touched it, hummed to life. Momentarily regenerated.

She sat back, watched the dark patch of soil as flicks of light fizzled and died out. She watched eagerly.

The pit was still a pit. Nothing.

Lilith frowned.

But then a little sprout appeared, rebelliously shot up through the dirt.

Lilith very nearly fell backwards at the sight of life.

She looked at the sprout again, examined it to make sure that it was real, that it had actually appeared out of nothingness.

And then she lifted her hand in the dark night to examine it. But it was only a hand. The light had faded away.

It was only Mary’s hand.

She waited, as if expecting…but the sprout remained a sprout and the pit remained diluted dirt. But there was still Hilda. Her energy was still felt beneath the ground. She had not crossed over, not yet…

It would take something more. And just what that something was Lilith was uncertain of.

She pulled her tired body wearily up, wiped dirt from her hands, from her knees, walked sleepily back towards the Spellman Mortuary.

There would be no more sleep that night though. No, sleep would not do.

She let herself into the dimly lit front foyer and stopped dead in her tracks, just as the figure descending the stairs froze before her.

Zelda.

Zelda looking exhausted in her silk nightgown and black robe hanging loosely from her shoulders, auburn hair mussed from rolling about sleeplessly. Her tired eyes were wide as she looked at Lilith who looked at her equally perplexed.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Lilith asked, closing the front door the rest of the way.

Zelda shook her head, regained her faculties and continued her descent down to Lilith’s level.

“Nor could I.” Lilith responded to her silent reply.

“So I see.” Zelda’s fatigued voice breathed, eyebrow rose, as she breezed by, meeting Lilith’s eyes for a brief moment. She did not dismiss her presence, merely moved past Lilith and into the kitchen.

Lilith found herself following Zelda, watching as the other woman sat down at the kitchen table and fastened a cigarette into her holder. Lilith stayed standing, lingering in the doorway uncertainly as Zelda lit the cigarette and inhaled raggedly.

Zelda slumped forward, fingers tangling into her hair, messing it up further.

“Hilde’s not here to make the tea.” There was the slightest hint of desperation in Zelda’s voice, a remembrance of the child that she had once been. Petulant yet dismayed.

Lilith eyed the tea kettle atop the stove. Mary Wardwell’s innate kitchen knowledge kicked in and she padded across the kitchen to lift the kettle and fill it with water, to light the burner and place the kettle atop the flame. She opened several cabinets until the tea was located, a nice sleepy, herbal blend of lavender and vanilla and chamomile selected, leaves placed in the strainer of the teapot. She located two teacups as the kettle whistled. The hot water was poured into the pot, lid placed firmly at the top and the items placed upon a tray that she carried to set atop the table.

Zelda watched her curiously through a haze of smoke.

Lilith settled in the seat beside her, poured the tea equally between each cup. She lifted a cup and saucer from the tray, settling it before Zelda.

Zelda looked at the steaming liquid. One would think that Lilith had intended on poisoning her by the way she stared at it.

Lilith took up her cup and saucer and sat back in her chair. Lifting the cup to her lips, blowing across the surface, she sipped.

Zelda’s eyes were on her lips, watching.

The cup was returned to the saucer with a click. The spell broken.

Zelda shifted, leaned forward to tap off her ashes, to smoke again and then to take up her own teacup in her hand.

She drank then stared fixedly at the tea. A look of approval shown briefly in her eyes.

“Thank you.” Zelda spoke quietly as she settled the teacup back into its saucer.

Lilith nodded at the beautiful creature beside her. She studied Zelda.

Zelda’s mind was racing beneath her cool, quiet exterior. There had been dreams. Terrible, terrible dreams – of this Lilith could clearly sense. Remembrances of fear, of oppression, being held against her will.

Lilith wanted to ask, to know, but Zelda was a closed book to her.

Zelda exhaled a cloud of smoke. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Lilith shrugged. “I didn’t ask if you wanted to.”

Zelda rolled her eyes, tapped off ashes.

Silence overcame them. Zelda slouched back in her chair as she lifted the teacup to her lips again. Eyes growing heavier. The night removed a veil from between them. They had both dreamed. It was palpable, hanging in the air between them.

Lilith attempted to find words, but found she had none. Anything she said would be met with resistance, with a huff, a dismissal.

Marie would know just what to say, of that Lilith was certain. Lilith, on the other hand, knew not where to begin.

Zelda rubbed at her eye. “When I…” She spoke and Lilith looked at her. “I might have been wrong when I said we were nothing alike.”

Lilith settled her saucer atop the table, amused. “And what, pray tell, may have led you to this conclusion? _Ta chérie_?”

“Don’t…do not...” Zelda snapped and Lilith crossed her arms, knowing that she had said something wrong. Yet again. But then Zelda rubbed her forehead, smoked, sighed. “She has been helping me to…see things. Yes. But I…well, perhaps I don’t know you as well as I thought. Perhaps I’ve been, quick to judge.”

The walls were easing away.

Lilith shook her head at this. “No. No, you have not been entirely wrong in your judgement of me and my character. I have done things…”

“But of your own free will?” Zelda’s words were forcefully, painfully enunciated.

Lilith met Zelda’s eyes, taken aback by the question. How nearly irritated Zelda was in the asking of it, but Lilith realized that irritation was not entirely directed towards her. 

Lilith’s mind raced. “Free will?” The concept was so strange, foreign. To will, to want something to happen, to bring about results, to control a situation, to cause it to come to fruition, to materialize. Willing things to happen, perhaps she had done so. Freely? Now that she could not fess up to.

Freedom had been lost somewhere along the way. Freedom to do as she pleased, to learn what she wished, to exhibit a freedom of thought and action had left her. She had given herself over to Lucifer’s will. His will done through her. His free will evident, hers diminished to nothing.

He had willed her to overtake Sabrina, she had done so via Mary Wardwell. Killing her without a thought. Killing anyone or anything the Dark Lord unholily _willed_.

And for what?

He would kill her now. At the first chance he got.

He had taken her and twisted her until she was nothing. Diminished. He had bent her into submission until her own wants meant nothing.

She had, in effect, sold her soul to the devil.

What was the saying, _better the devil you know than the one you don’t_?

Zelda crushed out her cigarette, sighed, “I need something stronger than this.” And she stood from her seat, moving towards the parlor.

Lilith watched her go, enthralled by the sway of hips beneath the flowing robe.

Lilith drank the rest of her tea and stood. Followed.

Zelda was pouring two tumblers of whiskey, two fingers in each glass. She handed one to Lilith and settled in the chair before the hearth.

Lilith did not sit. Instead, she looked at the fireless fireplace. She envisioned a flame shooting up from the dead, burnt logs. How nice it would be to have a fire just then.

And then a flame erupted. It overtook the wood, crackling and burning perfectly.

Zelda startled, stared at the flame perplexed. “How did you…”

Lilith lifted the whiskey to her lips. “I don’t know.” The fire burned bright, white. The light of it became too intense. Lilith had to look away.

Zelda looked to her, surprised. A reverent gleam alighted in her eyes.

Lilith felt a bit of herself flutter to life, a little pad of space on her right index finger. It throbbed for a moment.

Lilith sat down in the chair across from Zelda. The seat which seemed to have become Marie’s since her arrival. But tonight it was not occupied by her and so Lilith claimed its confines.

Zelda studied her as she sipped the whiskey.

Lilith clasped the drink in her hands, stared to the book open upon the coffee table. It was the book Zelda had brought to Marie, open to a page of moon phases. “Lunar magic?” Lilith inquired.

Zelda leaned back in the chair, let her head role back but not remove her eyes from Lilith. “Not quite.”

Lilith studied the page, let her finger trail from new moon to new moon, finger passing over waxing, full, waning. The cycles of life. The cycles of a woman. The cycles of life then a little death and then life on the other side again. Her fingers toyed with the edge of the page, let the thin paper play in her fingers. There was another page that was a dog-eared. She turned to it.

Lilith’s fingers trailed over the image of three women in one, a torch in each hand.

“Hecate?” Lilith glanced up, eyes colliding with Zelda’s. She had been watching her.

Zelda’s eyebrow rose in a half-admission, the hand which did not hold her tumbler pressed down between her knees. Uncomfortable, perhaps.

Lilith’s lips twitched, the sensation of lightness overcame her body. It made her left elbow prickle delightfully. There was something so familiar in this imagery. A remembrance of the time of Gods and Goddesses. When women had been revered for a moment in history as equals to men. When Goddesses had been worshiped without question.

She remembered the time, she remembered her role in it, how she had been revered. She had not thought of those days for so very long. The veil between the mortal and immortal world had been so thin then.

Lilith studied Zelda. “But don’t you know, my _darling_ Zelda…”

Zelda’s brow creased ever so slightly.

Lilith sat back, crossed her legs. “The world has been around for a very long time. I have not always been Lilith.”

Zelda began to realize, to recognize. “The first witch.” And then her fingers twisted into her hair, pulling at a curl testily.

Lilith reached for the book, pulling it atop her lap.

She stared at the picture, examined the idiotic and inaccurate histories written out. How strong she had been then. How Lucifer had not yet twisted the knife so deeply.

Another layer of haze was removed from her memories. She saw it all so clearly as she had not for some time.

“Marie thought that perhaps if we harnessed another deity’s powers, that perhaps we could…” Zelda’s soft voice petered out. She drank her whiskey. Looked at Lilith, squinted as if annoyed. “How is it, then, that it always leads back to you?”

Lilith laughed at this. “I have been around for a very long time. I have shifted and conformed to meet each new iteration of this world.” But who she had been at each moment seemed so often to elude her.

She lifted the whiskey glass to her lips, wondering if the amber liquid would somehow help her remember. But she knew it would only make her hazier. And Mary Wardwell was not one to drink, so that she knew it was only a matter of minutes before the room would spin ever so slightly and she’d lose her grasp just that little bit more.

Lilith focused on Zelda, on the resigned hunch of her body in the chair. Her weakened state. Her exhausted body, mind.

“Just, I suppose, as you have grown and changed, Zelda.”

Their eyes met. Zelda acquiesced to the sentiment.

Her eyes were so lovely devoid of her make-up mask. Her skin was wrinkled in just the right places. She was a woman made of real flesh and blood. She could break so easily but all Lilith saw was strength. Glowing, overwhelming power.

The book fell from Lilith’s lap, fluttering shut on the floor. They both looked at it but neither moved to pick it up.

The whiskey was working its magic. Lilith’s vision blurred for a moment before focus returned.

Zelda was looking at her. Zelda’s glass was empty. She sat forward, as if to get up, to refresh her drink. But did not stand.

Lilith’s hand shook.

An auburn curl fell into Zelda’s eye.

Lilith reached up to brush it away. Finger grazing over soft, warm skin.

Zelda’s eyes widened.

Lilith’s hand cradled her cheek.

Zelda did not move away from her touch.

Green orbs flashed to lips, bottom lip retracted between teeth. The thought crossed their minds.

How easy to lean forward…

But Zelda’s eyes slid closed, a nod of disapproval. And then she was standing and Lilith’s hand fell through empty air.

Zelda refreshed her drink and lighted a cigarette. She stood smoking for several minutes with her back to Lilith.

“You’re not even real.” She finally whispered.

Lilith felt a strange pain beneath her left ribcage. An uneven rhythm pulsing beneath the surface.

Had she ever been real?


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

She sat straight up in bed.

She had not been sleeping, merely staring at the calathea that seemed to grow and flourish in its eastern facing window with each passing day. She could tell that a new leaf was beginning to blossom, would slowly unfurl itself to the world if not that day then the next. It was like witnessing a strange, holy miracle. Unfolding perfectly, beauteously before her eyes.

But there were voices growing louder, hissing like a pit of snakes, hideously ominous. A language she recalled, foreign, sinister sounding. The whispering of it grew louder in her ears.

A sensation of dread washed over her.

Something was happening. Something had happened.

Lucifer.

He was near.

Not upon the Spellman property but close. In the forest.

She sensed him. Felt his presence acutely.

She closed her eyes, willed herself to see, to know.

And then she knew.

He had been to Mary’s cottage.

The voices grew into piercing shrieks and her hands flew to her ears, trying in vain to make it stop, to make the screeching, deafening sounds go away. But they only seemed to intensify. It felt as if her ear drums – Mary’s ear drums – might burst.

But then just as suddenly as it had begun it stopped.

She sat. Heart racing.

Staring out the window as if somehow expecting him to appear before her.

But nothing came.

It was only the sound of birds chirping, of bodies stirring in the house below her, the waking of morning.

Quiet, peaceful, calm.

She stood, went to the western facing window. For Mary’s house lay just a bit further on from the Spellman Mortuary. If Lilith squinted just a bit more, she could almost make out the small clearing where the cottage would sit. She tried to sense, to know just what had happened.

She stayed still, considering, thinking, sensing.

Mary’s life force still felt palpable.

If Lucifer had come to her he had not yet harmed her. _Yet._

Lilith cursed, knew it was only a matter of time before something happened.

But for now, for now Mary was safe. Tucked away in her cottage, hopefully blissfully unaware.

Lilith was uneasy, ears still ringing, as she descended the endless stairs to the main level of the Spellman Mortuary.

She heard someone fussing about in the kitchen, the smells of breakfast rising to greet her upon the landing. And for a moment her heart sped up. For if her waning magic had somehow ignited the pit, then perhaps the person in the kitchen would be…

“Marie?” Lilith breathed, surprised to find the Spellman’s honored guest in the silk robe that Zelda had been wearing the previous evening and a rather titillating little slip beneath it. All long legs and lean muscles and cooking up a storm as if she were about to serve a feast to the multitudes.

“Good morning, _ma biche_.” Marie’s smiling face turned upon Lilith, but her smile seemed to fade as she regarded Lilith. Turning fully from the grits she was preparing on the stove, she studied Lilith more intensely. “Something has happened.”

Lilith shook her head, wishing the ringing would subside. “No. Nothing. As far as I can tell anyway…”

Marie looked concerned upon her, but allowed this partial answer.

Lilith leaned forward, taking in the delicious Southern spread laid out before her. Mary’s body had taught her about real food. Mary’s body longed for nourishment that was not deceased young men.

Marie eyed her again before reaching for some sliced vegetables to add to a pan of simmering steak. It sizzled and then died out. “There are so many mouths to feed around here; I figured it best to whip up some Louisiana delicacies for breakfast. Reminds me of home.” Marie spoke, as if needing to explain her presence. As if knowing that her voice was somehow helping to relieve Lilith of her pained ears. “Besides, I wanted to let Zelda sleep. She hardly did last night, _n’est-ce pas vrai_?”

Lilith looked to Marie and their eyes met. The corners of Marie’s eyes curled kindly.

Lilith sniffed, squared her shoulders. “ _Oui, mais bien sur_.”

Marie smiled prettily. “Perhaps you might like to slice those apples for the muffins I’m making?”

Lilith stared at the gleaming objects. So well-polished and lustrous as they were. She nodded, stepped forward to the kitchen island. She looked to the knife block, let her fingers graze over the handles of all the knives until she selected a not too large yet not too small one. She wrapped her fingers around its handle, withdrew it from its wooden sheath, the metal catching in the morning light, shining as it was revealed.

The object felt light in her hand. She studied its blade.

Then the back of Marie’s head.

Her fingers remembered the death they had exacted so many times before. The countless times she’d so easily taken a knife to throat, pressed the blade of it against skin and jerked just ever so...

How terrible it would be to bloody up Zelda’s pretty robe.

The knife sliced clean through the surface of the apple, splitting it in two.

The fruit of knowledge. Knowledge – the original sin. To know was to suffer.

It was the scent of _her_ that Lilith detected first.

Lilith was midway through the second apple, slicing it into little, tiny irregular pieces the way that Marie wanted when she made her morning appearance.

She sensed her looking at her, sensed those cool green eyes watching, surveying just what it was that was happening in her kitchen. Lilith looked up, caught her lingering uncertainly in the doorway of the kitchen. Impeccably made-up already. Her eyes were wide as she turned her attentions to Marie at the stove in her robe.

“Good morning, _ma chére_.” Marie was looking at Zelda, held out a welcoming arm for her.

Zelda eyed Lilith warily and then, almost reluctantly, moved towards Marie, allowed her to pull her against her. And then their lips came together in a brief kiss. The slight touch of lips in the early morning and yet it betrayed a further intimacy that had come between them.

As if the robe had not been enough.

Lilith lifted the knife carelessly and succeeded in missing the apple. There was blood everywhere. Whether it was hers or Mary’s, she could no longer be certain. It leaked steadily from her hand, darkening the cutting board beneath it in a delicious crimson.

“Satan in hell, what have you done?” Zelda was then at her side, lifting her hand and Marie was wrapping it in a towel and applying pressure.

It had hurt more than she was willing to admit. Her body – Mary’s body – was so very sensitive. A cut to Lilith had meant nothing, had even felt pleasurable. But the more she felt herself down into Mary’s delicate body, the more she realized what it was to feel pain.

Zelda at her right and Marie at her left helped her to the table, sitting her down carefully. Marie kneeled at her side, Zelda muttering about locating a band-aid, something to keep the bleeding at bay for she was afraid her magic would not be strong enough to heal it alone.

Lilith tried to laugh at this ridiculous situation. “I suppose it slipped.”

Marie smiled at her.

They sat in uncompanionable silence.

Zelda returned with some bandages and pushed Marie away, shooing her back to her kitchen tasks – almost as if she were Hilda. “Those knives are very sharp. You have to be careful.” Zelda scolded as she messily wrapped Lilith’s fingers – lacking the proper finesse that dressing a wound required.

Lilith studied her eyes as she worked. The flecks of green against blues that made them look like little globes swimming in a sea of tired pink-white space.

So very close they were to one another. So very focused Zelda was upon her.

So that Lilith could map out Zelda’s face so very clearly. There were delicate little crows’ feet that creased about her eyes, visible in the morning light. The wrinkles that lined Zelda’s forehead, the little creases about her lips from years of smoking. Those lips. Pert but not too large. Painted a deep shade of red. Lips that had only moments ago pressed to Marie’s lips.

Zelda’s eyes flashed to Lilith’s – catching for a moment. Then she looked away, looked to Lilith’s hand.

“There you are.” Zelda patted the back of Lilith’s overly bandaged hand. “Keep it up above your heart.” And she stood to take her place across the table from Lilith, to prepare and light her morning cigarette and to look at the pile of morning newspapers neatly stacked at her place. She chose a Russian one, pulled it open like a shield before her and read while she smoked.

The curtain had closed upon the play.

Lilith sat with her arm strangely floating in the air. It shook, unaccustomed to being held this way. She lifted her other hand to support her elbow.

A bird flew by the window, caught her attention. She studied the creature, felt that she could see a white swirl of energy lingering in the air behind it.

She studied the white light as it sparkled and appeared to come closer to her. It snaked its way in the air, twirled through Zelda’s cigarette smoke and then met with the tips of her bandaged fingers. A jolt of energy shot through her, light blinding her momentarily and then she felt skin stretching, shifting molding back into shape.

And just as the light had come to her, it left.

She wiggled her fingers, held tight in their bandage. But the pain had dissolved, was no longer felt.

She looked from the newspaper before her to the cooking Voodoo witch behind her and found that neither were paying her any attention.

She lowered her hand and tugged at the bandage. It took some time to unwind what it was Zelda had done until finally skin was reached. She looked, examined her hand and found it unblemished, the cut not even a mar on Mary’s perfectly aged hand.

The corner of the paper had come down and Zelda was watching her.

She held up her hand, marveling at it in the sunlight.

The paper was jerked closed, Zelda sitting forward. “How did you…”

Lilith shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Zelda marveled, smoked again.

* * *

She was working mindlessly in the study. For she knew that the answer would not be in the pages of the books around her. No, it would not come to her so easily. But she felt as if she should make herself look busy.

And perhaps if something were to catch her fancy…if she were to stumble across something, an image, a passage, a remembrance…

It felt like grasping at straws.

A light evening rain splattered against the windowpanes.

She bowed her head, listening to the sound. How delightful it was. The way it evoked all the natural scents of the earth around them, heightened the smell of trees and Spring flowers so that nature seeped into the room about her, enveloped her in a hug.

She stared down at the book before her. It was a map, etched into the front cover of an old Mesopotamia history book. There was the curve of mountains. Her fingers traced over the lines, followed the ridges.

A dull hum began throbbing in her ears.

It turned into a terrible whine that made her brow twist in pain. Her hands shot to her ears, willing it to stop.

Then voices. Voices so loud, so terribly loud. Whispering.

Something was happening, something was very near to them.

Lilith grasped at the desk, used it to pull herself up, twisting her head in vain trying to make the sounds and the voices go away. Her body sensed, knew.

Mary.

Mary was very near. Mary had come to the Spellman Mortuary.

But why?

The doorbell rang.

The deafening sounds suddenly ceased ringing in her ears.

There was the click of Zelda’s heels upon the hallway floor. Lilith could hear every footfall. The slip of a lock, the scrape of the door against the ground as it was pulled open.

“Ms. Wardwell? To what do we owe the pleasure of your….oh.” Zelda’s voice faded and Lilith sensed fear. Permeating every inch of the place.

Lilith eased her way out from the library, daring to inch forwards, closer to the main foyer.

“You’re…you’re a w-witch.” Mary’s voice quivered. “And you’ve…you’ve ruined my life.”

Lilith’s heart pounded in her chest as she peered around the corner. It was worse than what she had imagined. The cold, steel contraption - that man had so proudly brought into the world to make killing as simple and easy as the quick pull of a finger - was clasped shakily in her twin’s hand, thrust forth in Zelda’s pretty, pretty face.

Zelda standing rigid. Hands held up in the air in surrender. They shook ever so slightly.

“Miss…..Ms. Wardwell you…you needn’t…” Zelda tried to reason with the frightened, upset, confused woman on her doorstep. But the gun stayed pointed directly, unsteadily at her. Mary looked so very determined to carry out her assignment. It reeked of the Dark Lord’s handiwork. 

“You killed my fiancé! And this…this is for him.” Mary pressed the gun forward.

“No!” Lilith shouted.

And Mary’s eyes adverted to her, at first not registering and then upon seeing herself doubled she very nearly dropped the gun entirely in shock.

Lilith raced forwards, intending on snatching the gun away from the woman who had the smell of Lucifer upon her. But as the gun slipped through the clumsy schoolmarm’s hands, she clasped it again, steadied her hand and inadvertently aimed directly at Lilith. She held the gun as if to protect herself.

It fired when Lilith was in inches of taking it away.

At first, Lilith felt nothing. At first, she thought that perhaps Mary’s unsteady hand had driven the bullet away from her.

Mary’s eyes went wide in horror. Her hand shook. The gun fell to the floor, hands covering her mouth.

Lilith looked to Zelda. Zelda, whose eyes had also gone wide. Zelda, who kicked the gun far, far away and then lunged forward, pressing a hand to Lilith’s abdomen.

There was no sensation. Until there was warmth on the front of her dress. A seeping, warm liquid was gushing down her skin, wetting her dress, turning Zelda’s hand red.

Mary was frozen in fear. “Oh my God.” She gasped, not knowing what to do.

Lilith felt light-headed.

Her legs unsteady.

She swayed.

Zelda caught her. “It’s alright. You’re alright.” Zelda whispered and Lilith looked at her as they both gracefully collapsed to the floor. She could see tears clinging to Zelda’s lashes as Zelda kept a hand pressed to the wound, her other arm cradling Lilith close to her. “You’re alright.” She whispered again and Lilith could sense her attempts to use her powers to heal her but they were not strong enough to do more than ease the bleeding.

“I didn’t mean…I didn’t mean…oh my God!” Mary was kneeling beside her in shock.

“Shut up!” Zelda gasped at Mary.

The room spun.

There were Zelda’s teary eyes.

And then there was darkness.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

There were voices. A cacophony of discussion swirling about her.

Smoke swirling off in the distance as heated discussions were had.

Pain, pain in her abdomen. Throbbing.

Something was inside of her. She could just make it out, swimming about in an intestine. Cold, metallic. She focused on the strange sensation. On the weight of it buried deep inside of her. A piece of mankind inside of herself that was inside of Mary Wardwell.

Mary Wardwell, whose voice she heard at odd intervals. Talking, frantic. The harsh bite of an exasperated Zelda snapping at her.

And then there was Marie.

There was such a calming presence to this woman. Soothing as Lilith felt herself placed atop a cold, sterile surface. There was a blinding white light that flashed before her face, the feeling of cold instruments entering her, pressing inside of her stomach.

The white light.

It flashed before her eyes.

The pain so intense in her hazy state and then suddenly there was no pain.

There was only whiteness. Hazy, dreamy whiteness as if she were floating in the clouds. And she felt in absolute bliss. There was the sun shining upon on her, her skin warmed, tan and supple and full of life.

And then she awoke. Eyes flashing open to see darkness. Complete and utter darkness.

She was inside of a cave. Water dripped from the stalactite overhead. She watched the slow descent of it, watched as the liquid clung to the large icicle like structures.

It was dark and yet she could see, could work out the design of it.

She sat up, the motion setting off a chain reaction of bats scattering everywhere, flying every which way, screeching and calling out as they sonically maneuvered.

Where was she?

It all looked so familiar and yet she did not recognize it at all. She had been here before.

Her fingers touched the cold, wet surface of the cave wall. It felt as if it breathed in tandem with her breath.

She looked up; saw light coming from a passage ahead. Her feet carried her forward, eyes sharp against low hanging rocks.

The light increased as she came forward to the mouth of the cave. She climbed upwards, pulling herself over jagged rocks until she came to stand in the light of day.

Silence met her ears. The whir of wind whipping across the barren, hilly plains before her.

She was alone in this wasteland.

She remembered. Civilizations, forests, fields of harvests, palm trees, a river that brought trade, life.

It was the sound of wings. Big, beautiful graceful wings.

Lilith looked upwards, had to shield her eyes against the brilliant sun. It was warm on her bare skin. She perspired, felt droplets of sweat trickling down her skin. Her smooth, youthful body did not bare any resemblance to Mary Wardwell.

She was both in time and outside of it.

The sound of wings alerted her to an approaching creature. It cut across the sun and she saw it for the first time. Large, majestic, beautiful. It came to her, approached her as if it recognized her. It bore white feathers, royally crowning its elegant head and large wings as it came to rest before her.

She stared at the bird and the bird stared back and they knew one another.

She held out her hand and the bird nestled against her fingers. She scratched at the gorgeous creature until he bowed his head and she knew just what it was he requested of her.

They took off in flight together and she surveyed the land beneath her. She visualized what she knew of it. The barley fields and sesame fields that stretched far off in the northwest. The river which would cut through to bring fresh water and the tradesmen. The palm trees that would produce date palms, and the structures that would rise up in order to protect her people.

She visualized it all and then it was as she saw it.

Laid out before her a whole new world of her invention and beneath her life sprung up from the dirt. Humans created in her image, populating the perfect town that had been invented for them.

And then there was the palace near to the northern mountain range from which she had emerged.

A palace of simple décor with a beautiful courtyard that boasted a wonderful fountain at its center and behind it a place for her to rest and sit beside the clear, cool waters.

The bird delivered her diligently at the palace, resting himself easily by her fountain, dipping his head to drink of the water. And she thanked him for his services.

Gorgeous women rose to greet her, to bathe her in oils and paint her face and wrap her naked body in fine silks. They fed her figs and dates and lavished her with attentions as the sun set upon her creation and she was content.

The women led her to a chamber above the courtyard in the breezy, cool evening. White muslin blew up in a jasmine scented wind and the women gathered about her. So very beautiful they were. All of them so very different in their own ways.

Their bodies were supple, some rounded, some bone and skin. Their skin ranged from lily-white to the color of the night sky. Their eyes were brilliant summer sky to deep, rich chocolate. Their hair the color of darkness to straw.

Lilith delighted in each of them. Her fingers tangled in raven hair; lips caressed a darkened nipple. Creamy hands covered her tan skin, green eyes looked down upon her, blonde hair swept over her stomach.

She laid contentedly atop her woolen stuffed mattress, a woman in each arm, surrounded deliciously. She stared upwards, up to the night sky, to the heavens above, to the moon that hung lustrously above the world she had created.

And everything was at peace.

The city arose again with the sun. The sounds of life filtered her senses. And there were birds that flew out, that monitored her world. They foretold of people coming from afar. Mostly tradesmen who wished to swap their wares for some barley which she was happy to oblige.

People came to her for guidance and assistance in all matters of their world and she happily provided what they needed. She was revered and respected. She enforced free will and knowledge. She educated everyone equally. Children were created, adding to her numbers, and they were loved by all. They were taught about the world and how to live in it. How to love the animals about them and to love nature that nurtured them.

And her world existed in stasis. Absolute harmony and balance.

Until a foreign boat arrived at their banks.

The birds had come to her. The birds had foretold of his arrival but knew not why he came.

She was at the side of her bathing pool, legs dangling in the cold, shallow water, when he came up from the riverbank.

He believed himself to be handsome, this much she could tell. He bore the adornments of royalty, his hands soft. His hair was dark, his body taut, muscular.

He looked upon her with the eyes of a man who enjoyed what he saw. She was familiar with this look.

“I am Lucifer.” He announced as he came to tower over her, blocking the sun from her body.

“Lucifer.” She repeated his name, for he knew her name. He would not have come otherwise. “To what do I owe the pleasure? Shall I prepare some men to fetch the barley?”

“No.” Lucifer shook his head. “I have not come to trade.”

“Then why have you come?”

Lucifer smiled at this. His eyes held something charmingly untrustworthy in them. He began to pace then, as if he owned the ground upon which he walked. “I have heard stories, you see, from the men who travel these shores. Men who come to me with fine goods as they come to you. I have heard from them how beautiful you are, how kind and fair you are with your people. I asked if there was a man who ruled beside you, but everyone has told me it is only you.”

Lilith laughed at this. “What use would a man be when I am perfectly capable of ruling this world by my own accord?”

Lucifer’s smile only brightened. “So, there is no one but yourself to protect this land.”

She did not like the implication in his voice. “I am perfectly capable of protecting my people.”

Lucifer’s smile did not fade from his face. He turned, looked down upon Lilith’s land, at her creation. She did not like his eyes upon it. He turned back to face her, and she felt her skin warm unpleasantly.

He clasped his hands behind his back. “I want you to be my wife.”

Lilith laughed at this. “No.”

Lucifer’s face did not change. “We could rule this land together. We would be stronger together.”

Lilith shook her head. “That will not happen. Not now, not ever.”

Lucifer smiled falsely, eyes peering out to the northwest where her crops grew easily. “It would be a shame, wouldn’t it? If something were to happen…”

Lilith was unphased by his threats. “I believe, if you have no further business with me, I shall need to take your leave.” And she stood from her pool. Her women stood from the stairs upon which they had been sitting as her birds circled about overhead.

Lucifer kept his eyes fixed upon her, stared upwards at the sky at the threatening cloud of white creatures. “If that is what you wish.”

“It is.”

Lucifer lingered only a moment longer, watching as Lilith’s women circled about her. He observed very carefully.

Then he nodded and took his leave. 

Once Lucifer’s ships moved on from the dock, Lilith took Shala and Cybele to her bedchambers.

* * *

The moon waned, disappeared, and waxed again.

The birds came to her. They whispered secrets to her, and she knew what it was she had to do.

A feast was to be held. A wonderous feast and everyone was to be invited.

Lilith called upon thirty-sex gorgeous young, unmarried men.

She prepared a brilliant menu of delicacies to be served and ordered that special gifts should be crafted for the event.

The day arrived swiftly upon the night of the full moon. Ships came from all over, bringing with them an assortment of divine beings. They arrived at her feast in decadent silks and jewels. Lilith welcomed all the guests equally, but anticipated the arrival of one in particular.

Lilith felt her arrival acutely. A finely veiled stranger in delicious red cloths with hauntingly gorgeous dark eyes appeared on the horizon. She was so very beautiful, this mysterious woman. She was deliciously sumptuous, smelling of fragrant oils, lovely eyes lined and intently focused upon Lilith when they finally came to meet face to face.

For a moment she was taken by this stranger. The stranger seemed equally taken by her.

They clasped hands in greeting, the woman’s hands soft.

“I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting you.” Lilith spoke warmly, taken in by those dark, mysterious eyes. She had never before seen a woman so spectacularly beautiful.

“I am Nuha.”

“Nuha, a lovely name. Almost as lovely as you are.” Lilith held dark eyes, enjoying the sight before her. “As my honored guest, I would be pleased to escort you inside. I have a surprise for you.”

Nuha looked quite taken by this statement. “To what do I owe the honor?”

“Oh,” Lilith took Nuha’s arm in her own and patted her hand, leading her into the grand hall of her palace – alight with all the people and sounds and smells of the great feast. “I have heard so many things about you. Of your great beauty and solid mind. I only wish to impress you by offering the finest of my kingdom to you.”

The noise of the feast died down upon Lilith’s entrance. She merely had to snap her fingers and a clearing was made.

“Bring forth the young men.”

And the delicious thirty-six young men appeared before herself and Nuha. They stood at the ready, bodies delightfully uncovered and on display. Lilith eyed each of them, proud of her selection.

Nuha seemed less delighted by this blatant display of masculinity. She kept her eyes modestly focused upon the boy’s heads.

“Please,” Lilith turned to Nuha. “It is customary for the honored guest to select one of these fine young men in order that he may escort you throughout the evening. You see.”

Nuha did not quite understand, and yet she did not wish to be rude. She did not eye the men as carefully as Lilith had. She merely selected the twelfth boy from the left.

And then with the snap of Lilith’s fingers the party commenced yet again.

“I wondered if we might speak…alone.” Nuha’s voice lowered amidst the crowd of people around them.

Lilith’s skin warmed at this. “Why, but I have so many people to greet. Perhaps once the festivities have died down. Please, enjoy young Anu. He is very charming, wouldn’t you say?”

And Lilith slipped away from Nuha to greet her guests and to mingle. Though her eyes did wonder to the delicious woman as she spoke with the others. And she found that her honored guest equally kept her eyes trained upon her.

Nuha was seated at Lilith’s side of the long, long table that stretched the entire length of the hall.

“As you all know,” Lilith announced loudly as she stood at the head of the table. “I have a very honored guest here with us this evening. The lovely Nuha. I would like to offer her some of the fine gifts which you have all bestowed upon me in order that we might celebrate her presence this evening. Please bring forth the gifts.”

And one after another, gifts were brought to Nuha’s side until a small pile had formed at her left. And when there were no more gifts to be given, Lilith sat, and the feast commenced.

Lilith watched Nuha in her periphery. Nuha watched her.

Finally, Nuha leaned towards her. “To what honor do I owe such lavish gifts? Is this customary for strangers to be awarded such luxuries?”

Lilith smiled prettily at her. “Why, no.” She reached out and stroked one soft cheek that had appeared from beneath the red veil. Her skin was so very smooth. Were it under other circumstances, Lilith may have quite enjoyed what else lay beneath Nuha’s red coverings. “This is only customary when my guest of honor has been married.

Lilith smiled wide.

Nuha’s brow furrowed. Looked then from Lilith to Anu who sat smiling across from her.

“How dare you?” And the person who stood from Nuha’s chair was none other than Lucifer himself.

The feast went silent. All eyes upon the unmasked man.

And then Lilith was laughing. Laughing so terribly hard. Laughing and laughing until Lucifer lunged forward and wrapped his hand around her throat and lifted her from her seat.

She fought him ruthlessly. Fingers clawing, kicking, punching, hitting, bodies matched in strength at every turn. But with a slight of hand, Lucifer willed a knife from the table into his hand and with one thrust it punctured deep into Lilith’s side.

Her eyes went wide. Lucifer’s arm went about her waist, holding her up before all the people of the feast.

A hush settled over the room.

Lilith’s lips parted. Lucifer followed the motion and Lilith found his eyes as charming as Nahu’s had been.

“Align with me.” Lucifer commanded.

Lilith sputtered blood that dripped down her chin. “Never.”

“You will suffer for this.” Lucifer whispered, so very close to her.

Lilith set her jaw and with one swift motion she pulled the knife from her body. The blood rushed from her side, her body fainted in Lucifer’s arms, the room about her dissolving into darkness.

* * *

Lilith awoke on the cold ground of the cave. She stared at the familiar stalactite. Watched as water dripped from the ceiling. The mass was growing with each time she returned to the cave.

Her body was in pain.

She pulled herself up, found herself to again be naked.

She walked through darkness to the mouth of the cave. Barren land stretched out for as far as her eyes could see.

She listened for the flap of wings. They came almost reluctantly. More tired than ever before. The bird appeared, dirtied and no longer pristinely white. She almost felt bad pulling herself upon his back, but gave him kind pats to urge him upwards and over their land.

She envisioned and she watched as it came to fruition. But from her aerial view she could tell that it was not as majestic as before. The crops would not grow. The people of the town were tired and hungry. There was discord at her palace steps. The woman who had once tended to her freely had been sold off to help feed their families.

She was alone now in her palace.

He came, as expected.

He sat beside her, surveying the decay.

“You’ve done this, haven’t you?” She inquired of him.

“Not entirely.”

She turned to him. “What is it that you want of me?”

He looked at her. “You are a woman with significant powers. You create entire civilizations with the flick of a hand and you harness animals and the land to do your bidding. You have no need for man. Yet you cannot protect yourself and your kingdom from this plague that seems to spread around us.”

She watched as his gentle eyes looked her over. For the first time since they had met she felt as if he were finally leveling with her, finally treating her as his equal and not just as a subservient lesser. “What is it that I can do to save them?”

Lucifer smiled upon her, let his hand reach out to caress at her cheek. Tender. Loving. “Join with me. We can rule this earth. Side by side.”

Lilith shook her head. “No, there has to be another way.”

Lucifer’s hand tightened against her skin, fingers clasped roughly. “Your people will die if you do not align. You do not want them to die, do you?”

Lilith shook her head, a strange sensation pulsing from his fingers, flowing into her head. There were visions, terrible, terrible visions of death and destruction. Of blood spattered about her kingdom, storms floating overhead that destroyed her crops further, animals killed and slaughtered.

“Join me.” He whispered, more urgently.

Lilith wanted to say no but there was something in Lucifer’s eyes that seemed strangely sincere. She was transfixed by him, allowed for him to press his lips against hers. They kissed and storm clouds that had not come for weeks suddenly appeared and it rained as it had not for weeks on end.

The people celebrated in the kingdom.

“I can do more than this if you will give yourself to me.”

And Lilith found herself taken by what he said. As if she were sleepwalking.

He brandished a book for her to sign with blood. Uniting them. The Book of the Beast. “And all who sign shall be saved and prosper.” He exclaimed.

He took her to bed and she died beneath him. 

Lucifer promised to save all of her kingdom. He promised that the harvest would be restored. All the people of the kingdom had to do was to sign their names in The Book of the Beast. One by one each person came to the palace to sign his or her name in Lucifer’s book and one by one each person of Lilith’s kingdom was restored to what they had been before. 

However, Lilith realized it was no more her kingdom.

A piece of her had died at the touch of his lips. A part of her went to sleep, returned back to the cave to lay dormant.

Lucifer had taught her many things. So many things. And the more he taught her, the less she knew of herself.

A light flashed. White light.

The light of the moon from her palace bedroom. With the white curtains flowing in the breeze. The women about her…

She remembered what she had once been. The powers she had once possessed, the freedoms…the free will…

“Did she move?”

“Perhaps.”

“Lilith?”

“Let her rest. She needs to heal.”

“But, Marie, her eyes…Lilith?”

“Zelda, she’s still with us but she needs time...”

“Look!”

“What…but how…how is she…?”

“It’s closing…”

There was darkness and then suddenly light. Breath flooded back into her lungs and she gasped. Her eyes flashed open and she sat up to find herself surrounded by the green tiles of the mortuary basement. And Zelda. Zelda hovering over her smoking and Marie at her other side.

“You’ve healed yourself.” Zelda whispered.

Lilith’s hand moved to her abdomen, where the bullet had entered her and she felt nothing. Only Mary’s skin, perfectly unblemished.

Her lips curled into a smile.

“Why are you smiling? Why is she smiling?” Zelda demanded of Lilith, of Marie.

Lilith sat up and first pulled Zelda to her, pressed their lips together and then turned to Marie and kissed her.

They stared at her. Astounded.

“I know.”


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

“She needs to rest.” Marie’s voice came from above her. “She has been on a long journey just now. She has seen so much.” And Marie’s hand wiped over Lilith’s forehead, as if gathering information.

“What has she seen?” Zelda inquired, curious to know, to understand what it was that had just happened.

“Only she can tell you.” Marie whispered. “It was something she had forgotten until now.”

Lilith looked then from Zelda to Maire. “Where is Mary?”

Zelda’s brow furrowed in confusion at this question.

“You’ve only just recovered from the gunshot, _ma biche_. You need to rest.” Marie’s hands were at her shoulders, attempting to ease her back against the cool table.

“No.” Lilith sat up straighter, pushing at Marie. “Where is she? What have you done to her?” Lilith fought off Marie’s advances, swung her legs over the side of the table and made to stand up.

“You heard Marie, you need rest. What do you even need with her? She shot you, for Satan’s sake.” Zelda grumbled, placing a hand on Lilith’s arm to keep her from getting up.

Lilith pulled herself free from Zelda’s grasp and righted herself. She looked down at her dress and grimaced. There was a hole in the material and a generous amount of blood. It was such a shame. She had liked the dress so very much.

Turning on the two bewildered women Lilith pulled herself to her full height and looked them in the eyes. “What have you done with Mary?”

Zelda and Marie looked at one another, exchanging confused glances.

Lilith rolled her eyes. “I am perfectly _fine_. Please, take me to Mary.”

Zelda puffed at her cigarette, ash falling from the end of it. “Since you’re so insistent, I will take you to her. But whatever did you mean by “ _I know”_?”

Lilith held up her hand. Shook her head. “First, I need to see Mary. There are things I must set right with her. The rest of it I will explain later. I do have a plan now, you see, so I will prove to be useful after all.” Lilith eyed Zelda, more self-assured than she had felt in millennia.

For now she remembered herself.

Zelda stared at her, astonished.

“Shut your aghast mouth and take me to Mary.” Lilith snapped.

Zelda’s eyes went wide. She stubbed out her cigarette and then begrudgingly nodded her head for Lilith to follow.

They wound their way up through the house, up and up until they reached a portrait of a young Zelda and Hilda and Edward. Zelda looked to Lilith and then incanted a spell and a doorway appeared. And inside the doorway was poor Mary Wardwell tied up in a chair, eyes wide in horror, mouth gagged to keep her from calling out.

“What have you done to her?” Lilith sighed, pressing past Zelda to go to Mary.

“She shot _you_. And if she hadn’t shot you she would have shot _me_. What else were we to do? Besides, she wouldn’t stop going on about how sorry she was so I had to shut her up somehow.” Zelda snapped from the doorway.

Mary’s eyes widened as Lilith came closer and closer to her. Fear and panic rising up, coloring her skin red, eyes watering. “It was not Mary who did it, though.” Lilith explained as she worked the gag loose. “It was Lucifer who enchanted her to come here.”

Zelda had no retort for this.

And as soon as the gag was removed Mary’s hoarse voice yelped. “Who – who are you? Get away from me you…you devil! You witch! Why do you look like me?”

Lilith slapped her across the face.

Mary quieted, shocked.

“Now listen to me.” Lilith kneeled down before Mary. “I need you to understand what has happened. I don’t think anyone has told you the real truth and I need you to know. Alright?”

Mary frowned. “You hit me!”

Lilith sighed, reached up and placed her hand lovingly on Mary’s stinging cheek, rubbing it tenderly. “And you shot me, so I suppose that can make us even. Though I have done more than just slap you. Yes, my darling, darling Mary Wardwell. I was commanded to kill you in order to get close to Sabrina.”

Mary’s eyes widened at this. “You _what_? You _killed_ me?”

Lilith shrugged. “Well, it wasn’t so much killing, as sort of possessing you for a short period of time but it did require some bloodshed to accomplish.” Lilith let her fingers curl into a tendril of Mary’s lacquered hair that had come loose, most likely in the battle against being tied up.

Lilith looked to Zelda still hovering, confused, in the doorway. “Perhaps, Zelda, you might give us some privacy. I think that what I am about to tell Mary deserves that.”

Zelda huffed, crossed her arms. For she, too, wanted to know just what this truth was. But realizing that Mary was uneasy by her lingering, she reluctantly consented and left, closing the door carefully behind her.

“Who _are_ you?” Mary was having trouble breathing.

“Please, darling. I really won’t harm you. I’ve already brought you enough pain and I no more wish to hurt you further.” Lilith tried to reassure her. “My name is Lilith.”

Mary’s brow furrowed. “That is a rather contentious name to have.”

Lilith smiled at this. “And why might that be?”

“Well, in some religions, Lilith is believed to be the first woman, even before Eve. Not us Catholics, though.”

Lilith grinned. “Why yes. Yes, you’re quite right. They’ve told stories about me for years. Never quite true, as it were.”

Mary’s eyes were as big as saucers then as she watched Lilith stand, move towards the window. Lilith stared out onto the sunny day. The wind was picking up.

Something was coming.

A bird flew to a nearby tree. A white bird. Lilith watched as another bird came. And then another. A flock circled, slowly came to fill the tree until it looked as if it were white with snow.

Lilith smiled to herself.

“You…you’re Lilith? From…from…but how can that…that’s not…”

“What?” Lilith turned back to face Mary. “Real? Your beloved religion is not real?”

“No…of course it…well, I feel…there is comfort in the Bible…but it’s stories…” The words sounded dry on her tongue.

Lilith’s eyes shifted to the ceiling as she thought about this. “The Bible has brought you comfort, has it?” She rubbed at her neck.

“Yes…I was raised to believe…”

“And you don’t believe that I could exist and yet here I am in flesh and blood.”

“But you’re…you’re…wearing my skin…”

Lilith looked down at herself and smiled at this. “Why yes, I suppose I am. I’m dreadfully old, as you can imagine. My skin’s not what it used to be and I found that I quite enjoyed your body.”

Mary’s cheeks flushed at this comment. Ah, how virginal the woman was. Lilith recalled how it had felt to take Adam between her legs, how unaccustomed Mary’s body was to the sensations…

“Your beloved God and creator did, in a way, exist. He wanted to be seen as the almighty power, but there were forces that came far before him. And your precious Jesus did, in fact, walk the earth. Though he simply brought with him all sorts of metaphysical ideas that were very radical for his time, that upset many people. Of course his story has been twisted and morphed and strangled throughout time. So, you see, what you have been seeking to find comfort in is all man-made stories meant to create blind sheep that follow this omnipotent entity. He has, in effect, taken people’s lives from them in his attempt to make them pious and loyal to him.”

Mary was shaking her head. “No…no, he is love and kindness and I…”

“My darling,” Lilith moved behind her, placed her hands upon Mary’s shoulders. “You have been empty for years worshipping this false being. He has not brought to you that which you wish, nor has he allowed you to live…pleasurably.”

Mary shifted away from her forcefully, nearly toppling over in the chair. “How _dare_ you…what would you even know…”

“Adam.” Lilith whispered, remembering him. His kindness, his pure innocence that she had not witnessed in someone for ages.

“What?” Mary whispered, turning to Lilith. “How do you know…”

Lilith moved to stand before Mary again. Wanting to look her in the eyes. “While I was in possession of your body, Adam returned to Greendale.”

“He _what_?”

“He came to surprise you for Valentine’s Day.”

“He…but he’s…”

“No. He was here. And, I must admit - since we’re being honest - that I very nearly killed him but there was something so very…beautiful about him.”

“Adam is a – _was_ a good man! How dare you…”

“Darling, Mary…I did _nothing_ to him! I - if you can believe me - cared for him very much as you did. He was a loving, kind man and I…” Lilith had come to her knees, was inching towards Mary. Mary who was still tied up and frightened. Mary whose eyes were both wide in fear and yet also filled with tears.

“What happened to him?” Mary breathed.

“Lucifer killed him.”

“Lu-Luci-Lucifer?” Mary choked out the name. It was almost a laugh that came from her lips. “ _Lucifer_?”

“Yes, like the Lucifer from the Bible The devil, if you will.” Lilith took a deep breath and settled into a cross-legged position before Mary. She felt strangely self-conscious of the blood stain on her dress – she could tell Mary was eyeing it with concern.

“Why would he kill Adam?” Mary’s fearful voice asked.

“Well, to put it simply, I have served Lucifer for millennia. Rather against my own will at first and then it became second nature to me. To work for him, to do his bidding. That is what I was doing when I possessed you – it was his will. Just as it was his will that brought you to the Spellman home to kill them. I feel I know you rather well and I do not believe you to be violent enough to shoot someone of your own accord.”

Mary’s eyes filled with tears and she shook her head. “It was an accident.”

“Yes, I know.” Lilith patted her knee gingerly.

“How…is it…” Mary tried to see the wound through the hole in the dress.

“Healed up. One perk of being a witch, I suppose.” Lilith shrugged. “The _first_ witch, at that. The most powerful witch…” her eyes shifted to the window and saw that the birds had continued to multiply outside in the trees. They were watching. “Lucifer did not like that I cared for Adam. Because,” Lilith turned back to Mary, “I _did_ care _very much_ for Adam. You must know this.”

Mary bit her lip.

“So, Lucifer did what he always did and took Adam from me. He _killed_ Adam.”

Mary looked startled at this. “But that man who came to me, that Father told me that the Spellman’s…”

Lilith shook her head. “That was Lucifer disguised. Giving you false words so that you would strike out against the Spellman’s, against _me_ …he will kill anything that gets in his way of overtaking the realm. He wishes to rule over mortals as your God tries to.”

“My God is…” Mary began with such conviction but then shook her head. “How did he let this happen…”

Lilith scoffed and pulled herself up. “ _He_ neither allowed nor did not allow. It’s all falsehoods. It’s all a power play. And you, Mary Wardwell, are smarter than that. I can sense it in you. You have questioned it for years and yet you hide behind religion. You hide behind your convictions all the while studying up on the occult. Because metaphysical experiences fascinate you, don’t they?” Lilith let her hand come to rest on Mary’s shoulder lightly and the woman did not shove her away or jerk her body away from her touch.

“I…of course it has fascinated me, but I…”

“Not to mention that you’ve kept your body pure for your future husband and yet you pine over him, over others, because that is what your God supposedly asks of you. You have tried to remain chaste, and yet you torture yourself when you must touch yourself to quell your desires.”

“That is…that is _private_ …it’s…”

“I have been in your body. I know it now. I know its feelings, its wants.”

“No…” Mary shook her head.

“You have wanted for years.” Lilith’s thumb traced down Mary’s familiar cheek.

Mary shuddered. “No…please, don’t…I…”

“There’s no need to deny yourself pleasure, Mary. We are creatures made for pleasure. For wisdom. For knowing. For learning. For stretching our minds, questioning everything…Don’t you want to know yourself more?” Her finger traced down Mary’s neck and Mary shivered.

“No…” Mary whined.

Lilith bent over her, pressed her lips to Mary’s cheek.

Mary inhaled.

“Don’t you think you deserve to have this?”

Mary shook her head but her body went slack when Lilith pressed her lips to the pulse point at the base of her neck.

There was the light flutter of a pleased exhale.

Lilith rested her chin on Mary’s shoulder, watched as her other hand traced down from Mary’s other shoulder, down over her breast bone, further down over the curve of her full breast to circle about an aroused nipple. “Yes,” she pressed her lips to Mary’s cheek. “There is no need to deny yourself any longer, Mary.”

And Mary turned, eyes wide to look at Lilith. Their repeated crystal-clear blue eyes looked upon one another. Mary, breathless, leaned in and Lilith met her hungry lips. Bore the brunt of her sloppy, wanting kiss, twisting it and taming Mary, teaching her what it was to kiss.

Lilith captured Mary’s face in her hand and examined her flushed face. “Beautiful.” She whispered before standing and Mary sighed. “Now that we’ve kissed and made up, I would very much like to set you free and I do hope that you will not be fearful. Zelda and her friend Marie do not wish you harm. Nor do I. We will protect you. Can we protect you?”

Mary was looking at Lilith differently now. Entranced. Her head nodded up and down, slowly.

And Lilith began untying her. “I feel that you should stay here with us. You see, Lucifer is on the prowl. He will come here at any moment to kill me. I sense it will happen sooner rather than later.” She explained as she magicked open the last of the knots.

And then arms were thrust about her, holding her body suffocatingly close. “Thank you.” Mary whispered against her neck.

Lilith let her arms come about Mary, heart strangely warming at the sensation of her twin pressed against her.

* * *

Lilith offered her small attic space to Mary, feeling that with the calathea so very happily thriving in the window, it would offer her protection. She relegated herself to the narrow and slightly uncomfortable couch in the living room.

Zelda remained in the living room that evening, drinking whiskey and smoking, sulking long after Marie obviously excused herself to go upstairs to the room she was, presumably, now sharing with Zelda.

Lilith drank her own glass of whiskey that Zelda had poured for her. As if Zelda had needed a drinking partner.

Lilith sipped at the amber liquid, looked to Zelda who had been staring at her for the better part of the last hour.

“I know that you wish to know. That you probably do deserve to know…” Lilith spoke as she swirled the whiskey about in her glass, watching as it formed into a tornado.

“Of course I do.” Zelda lighted another cigarette. She was a bit hazy from drinking. Gorgeous in the undone way she had about her when it was late at night and her body loosened from the typical control and command she had about herself.

“Would it delight you to know that I have always been stronger and more powerful than Lucifer?” Lilith drank.

Zelda laughed at this. “Really.”

Lilith smiled at Zelda. “I know how we will defeat him.”

Zelda’s brow furrowed. Her lower lip puckered out briefly. “I believe you.” She finally whispered and finished off her whiskey.

Lilith sat down her whiskey glass and stood, moving to Zelda. Zelda’s eyes widened as she got closer, as she knelt down before her. “Give me your hand.”

Zelda’s eyebrow rose at this. She inhaled on her cigarette and did not give her hand.

Lilith took the empty whiskey glass from her and sat it down on the table at her side, reaching for her hand. She threaded their fingers together and with her free hand she pulled her black silk slip upwards and watched as Zelda’s eyes followed the ascent of the garment, tracing over her skin. “Look.” Lilith whispered. “It’s healed. I’m alright.”

Zelda’s eyes stayed transfixed upon her body but she scoffed. “Of course you’re alright.”

“You were worried.” Lilith whispered and brought their combined hands to rest against her perfect abdomen.

Zelda’s hand uncurled from Lilith’s fingers to stretch across her skin, to feel her muscles, to reassure herself that the bullet wound was, in fact, gone. “Yes.” She whispered, eyes flashing to meet Lilith’s.

Lilith’s hand moved then to cup Zelda’s cheek, to run the pad of her thumb over the skin. Zelda’s hand shook.

Zelda’s lip was sucked in as she regarded Lilith’s lips for a second. Lilith’s thumb smoothed over Zelda’s lips.

And then they were kissing. Zelda tasting of whiskey and ash.

Teeth clashed, a tongue slid between lips, hungry, wanting.

“I thought that you…” Zelda whispered as her hand shifted up Lilith’s abdomen to cup a breast as Lilith pulled her closer.

“Shh.” And she tilted her head to the side to capture Zelda’s lips again, sighing as Zelda’s palm moved against her nipple.

There was the clearing of a throat that pulled them apart.

Zelda sat back, hands falling away from Lilith.

Lilith’s slip fell back into place.

“Zelda, _ma chére_ , I thought you should come to bed.” Marie’s voice floated in to greet them.

Zelda inhaled from her cigarette and crushed it out. “Yes. Yes, I think I should.”

Lilith sat back, watched as Zelda got up and moved to Marie. Marie who was so good, who made sense and who adored Zelda, but seemed rather nonplussed by Lilith’s presence.

Marie looked at Lilith. Something passed between them as Zelda let her hand wrap about Marie’s middle. Marie’s eyes only fluttered away from Lilith when Zelda tilted her head to capture Marie’s lips in a kiss and Marie allowed herself to be kissed. Decadently. Gorgeously. A show, perhaps, for Lilith.

Zelda did not turn back to Lilith as she spoke her parting. “Sleep well.” Was all she offered before she took Marie up to bed.

Lilith watched until they disappeared then crawled to the couch and wrapped herself into the blankets Zelda had set out for her. They smelled of Zelda.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Lilith walked along the Spellman Mortuary property line.

She gazed out across its protected borders, deep into the forest.

The day was clear, almost cloudless. The weather was warming. The sun hot against Mary Wardwell’s perfectly weathered skin. Lilith liked the warmth, knew that her body had been made for it.

There was a sound off in the distance. A first a dull hum and then a light crescendo. A humming, a swooping buzz.

She glanced upwards; eyes momentarily blinded by the blaze of the sun above her. She squinted, eyes adjusting to the brightness, the sound on the horizon ever increasing until it was deafening. The delicious whoosh of wings came about her and a wind whipped up her hair, blowing it from her neck.

The sun dipped into a shadow. The birds, her birds, had returned to her.

They circled, they perched in the trees about her.

And they whispered to her. They told her that what she had requested of them had been done. And she thanked them for their service.

And one by one they flew away and she felt as if someone were watching her.

She gazed to the left, to the right but saw no one.

Yet, she knew he was there. Watching. Observing.

He would come for her soon.

He told her this with his silence.

* * *

He was banking on a surprise attack. He was making them wait it out, to not know the exact moment when he may or may not arrive.

Lilith found it rather droll, this waiting.

The hedge witches were sat about the property in case he should come. They all seemed to sense his arrival as the wind had turned that evening and blew at the Spellman Mortuary. The windows rattled in their frames.

The theatrics of it all were tiring and she longed for him to just show his face already.

And there was Zelda who had done her best at avoiding Lilith for the better part of the day. Away at the Academy and then home yet invisible. Until she came to dinner, which Lilith had spent the better part of the afternoon working on.

It was a quiet affair, since Ambrose and Sabrina were absent, and Hilda was still buried beneath the earth – so far still of the living, as far as Lilith could tell. So that Marie sat across from Zelda and Lilith claimed the head of the table, and uncomfortable Mary Wardwell was sat across from her.

Lilith was pleased with the feast she had been able to concoct. And more pleased that it seemed edible to everyone.

After straightening out the kitchen, Zelda retired to the parlor with a pile of papers and cigarettes.

Mary perused the bookshelves until she found something suitable and pressed herself into the corner of a couch. Her eyes seemed to find Lilith, subconsciously – as if needing to get used to seeing herself doubled yet also rather intrigued by Lilith. For Lilith had awoken something within Mary. Something new throbbed in the quiet schoolteacher as she tried to look studious over her glasses yet ended up looking rather lost and wanting.

Lilith made a fire. She sat on the other end of the couch from Mary, across from Zelda. Zelda glancing up over her glasses to examine Lilith until their eyes would meet and then she would return to the important Academy work she was doing.

Marie brought in some attempt at refreshments. Some tea and fruits, crackers and cheese.

“Would you like a drink, _ma chére_?” Marie purred to Zelda. Lilith watched as her lips were brought close to Zelda’s ear as she spoke.

Zelda’s eyebrow rose. “Well, that does seem rather tempting, but I sense that the Dark Lord is upon us and it would be irresponsible to imbibe this evening, don’t you think?”

Marie shrugged her slender shoulders and leaned over to pilfer one of Zelda’s cigarettes and light it.

Lilith leaned forward and stole a strawberry from the tray, bringing it to her lips and biting into its sweet skin. She could see Zelda’s eyes upon her again. Mary was peeking from behind her book.

She felt, strangely, on display. 

She sighed, rested back into the cushions of the rather uncomfortable couch that had become her bed as of late. “I suppose it may be a long night. He does seem to be taking his time.”

They all agreed.

Then silence was thick amongst them.

Zelda abandoned her papers after a while, pushed her glasses to her forehead, and stood. She poured herself a finger of whiskey from a bottle and downed it.

Lilith could see Mary watching Zelda, anxious by this woman who had tied her up and gagged her. Lilith could tell she was afraid of her and she could hardly blame her. To the outside observer, Zelda was all harsh angles and unpleasantness. It took more knowing to truly see Zelda for what she was.

Zelda turned ever so slightly and met Mary’s eyes. Mary’s back straightened.

“Would you like a drink?” Zelda offered indifferently.

Mary shook her head, pushed her glasses back up her nose. “No…no, thank you.”

Zelda nodded, looked to Lilith.

Lilith shook her head.

So, Zelda refreshed her glass and then filled another and moved back towards her seat, passing off the extra tumbler to Marie.

The silence resumed.

Mary yawned and Lilith turned to her. Her twin looked utterly exhausted, frightened, disoriented. Lilith moved closer to her, let her hand rest lightly upon her arm. “You needn’t stay up all night. If you’re tired, please go on up to bed. We’ll keep you safe.” Lilith let her finger trail down Mary’s cheek, thrilling at the way Mary’s pupils dilated in the dimly lit room, aroused by the gentle touch.

Mary nodded slowly, confusedly, let the book she had hardly read fall closed on her lap and then looked from Lilith to Zelda and Marie. “Yes.” She looked back to Lilith. “Yes…I think…I think I shall.” She moved from Lilith’s touch, fearful of her.

“Sleep well.” Lilith called after her as she made her somewhat hasty and feverish exit.

Lilith smiled to herself and turned to find Marie watching her.

Zelda crushed out a cigarette and stood to refresh her drink. Marie caught Zelda’s waist as she passed, held her back for a moment. “I thought, _ma chére_ , that you did not want to imbibe…”

Zelda swatted her away. “One more won’t hurt. I’m still as sharp as ever.” And she leaned down to kiss Marie’s lips and take her empty tumbler to refresh it as well.

Lilith relaxed back onto the couch, letting her legs stretch out along its surface, her head falling against a throw pillow. She stared at the dark ceiling. “You know, I don’t get the feeling that he’s coming tonight. You needn’t stay up on account of me.”

Zelda had returned to her seat, lighting herself a new cigarette. “Nonsense. Marie senses that he is near. We should be prepared.” As if Marie were not there herself in the room with them to make this assessment herself.

Lilith did not look to Zelda, simply continued to stare at the ceiling. “There’s no use in depriving yourself of sleep.”

Zelda coldly laughed at this. “As if I could sleep even if I wanted to.”

“Zelda, perhaps she has a point.” Marie chimed in. Ever Zelda’s bright light of reason who parroted whatever it was Lilith intended. Yet _she_ was actually listened to by the elder Spellman.

But Zelda was not listening to her this evening. “No.” There was silence and then, “if you are tired, you’re welcome to go on up to bed. I’ll come in a bit.”

“I’m not tired.” Marie spoke resolutely.

Lilith rolled her eyes at the ceiling.

The wind had given way to rain that pounded loudly against the siding of the mortuary. Lilith listened to it intently, delighting in the destructive clang of it. How forceful it was.

Her eyes slid closed. The storm was a balm.

She listened as Marie and Zelda spoke in hushed tones. Listened as lighters ignited, as ice clinked against the edge of empty glasses. It was both a comfort and an annoyance to have them here before her. They were attempting to act as her protectors, as she had assigned each very specific tasks in what it was that was about to unfold.

Though now she felt that she was an intruder upon a very different kind of alliance.

There was a shuffle of bodies, the sound of lips meeting deliciously, a whine – of protest?

“Zelda…she’s…”

“She’s asleep.”

Lilith was not asleep.

“She could wake up at any moment…”

“And isn’t that the fun of it?”

“ _Ma vilaine fille_.”

Lips meeting. The rustle of clothing. A sigh from the lips of the redhead.

Lilith’s eyes came opened and she turned her head unashamedly. Auburn locks teased at the bare, milky-white spans of Zelda’s bare back. Her head was tilted back, mouth soundlessly open in pleasure as Marie’s lips clung to one of her nipples, hand buried beneath the surface of Zelda’s tight skirt that was bunched up about her hips.

Gorgeous. She was so gorgeous like this. Wanting and taking what it was she wanted so brazenly before Lilith.

Lilith knew she wanted her to see.

And so she watched, she watched as Zelda’s body shuddered, fell apart in Marie’s caring, loving arms. Lilith listened as Zelda could no longer hold back the sighs and then she was shaking, and Marie held her, pulled her close to her as she came down. The thunderstorm effectively washing out the cries that Marie had elicited.

“ _Si belle, ma belle femme_ …” Marie whispered, pressed her lips against Zelda’s cheek.

Marie’s beautiful eyes opened. She looked right at Lilith. Eyes widened when Lilith looked right back at her.

They stared at one another.

Zelda sighed contentedly into Marie’s neck, unaware. Marie held her tighter.

Lilith blinked. Turned to face the back of the couch.

Sleep did not come.

* * *

The storm roared to a deafening crescendo sometime around four that morning.

Lilith sat straight up on the couch and found Zelda and Marie absent from her, the fire extinguished in the hearth.

He was near. She could practically hear his footfalls outside the Spellman Mortuary, and she stood straight up, racing to the front foyer, to stand upon the stairs. She was prepared.

The lights flickered. A crash of thunder sounded off in the distance and then the front door crashed in on itself and then he was standing before her. The protections and charms and hedge witches had not been able to keep him away.

She had never been safe, yet somehow this did not bother her.

The candles resumed their normal glow and she stared at the face of Faustus Blackwood.

Faustus Blackwood was a sorry excuse for a man. She had sensed it in all her dealings with him. He was fearful of women, of the power they possessed, just as Lucifer had been. She could sense his torment and his anguish as he slowly came towards her – possessed as he was. And rightfully so after what he had done to her darling Zelda. He absolutely deserved to be a container for the Dark Lord. She could only imagine how uncomfortable and confined they would both be together inside his skin.

“Are you prepared to die? I should have killed you years ago…perhaps it would have saved us both a whole lot of trouble.” It was Lucifer’s voice speaking through Faustus. It morphed, came in fits and spurts but it was Lucifer.

Lilith smiled, held her ground. Chin lifted just a bit for standing upon the steps as she was, she was taller than Faustus. “Oh, come. I don’t think you could have killed me then even if you’d wanted to. Nor do I think you can do it now.”

Faustus came to rest before the stairwell. He looked up at her and laughed. “You like to tempt your fate, don’t you? You always have.”

Lilith merely smiled. “Did you ever think, Lucifer, that you may need some help coming apart from Faustus?”

Lucifer laughed, Faustus laughed. “I am the most powerful being in the world. Once I extinguish you I shall be free.”

Lilith tilted her head. “I’m not entirely certain it works like that. I am not the missing link between freeing you from your warlock prison. But I’m certain I could help avail you of your little problem.”

“So you will beg for your life with the promise to save mine?”

“Well, I think that might only be fair after all that you did for me those years ago. Remember, Lucifer, when you came to me to help save my lands from starvation? When you promised to save my crops, my civilization, my people? And yet…do you remember what happened after that?”

Lucifer, Faustus smiled. “We did not have the strength yet to save that world. I saved you from further destruction.”

“By teaching me to use my powers to create demons to torment humanity? By taking me further and further away from Eden…”

Lucifer scoffed at that. “As if Eden would ever invite you back into its arms. You were banished, thrown out, cast out…there was no place for you there.”

“Perhaps not, but I did not have to obey you.”

“You would be dead without me.”

“And it seems I am dead with you, as well. Isn’t that right? You have come here to kill me for helping them to contain you, for attempting to help destroy you. Only…look at you.” Lilith let her fingernail trace roughly over the stubble of Faustus’ cheek. The scruff scratched at her nail. “You’re stuck in there with no way out.”

He grabbed for her, but she stepped away from his grasp. “I will destroy you, Lilith. You are mine to do with as I please.”

Lilith frowned. “Am I? I quite remember that you wished for me to serve at your side and yet you never gave me the title, the power, the position. Now you’re attempting to go after that half-wit Sabrina because you’ve given her mortal blood. You think she’s the answer to all your problems, but she’s got a brain of her own. You didn’t account for that, now did you?”

“Shut up!” Lucifer, Faustus cried out. Loud enough to wake the dead. He struck her, roughly in the face, grabbed for her throat. She sputtered, pushing at his hands. “You will free me from Faustus Blackwood’s body and then once you have served your purpose, I shall kill you once and for all.”

“I’m not the only threat you should be worried about.” Lilith choked out, spat at him.

Faustus throttled her harder, smashing her head back into the banister. She pushed roughly at him.

“I would listen to her if I were you.” A voice from above was heard.

And for a moment Faustus, Lucifer was thrown off guard. He held Lilith down but looked up to where the voice had come from.

Lilith felt a wave of relief flow through her at the sound of _her_ voice.

Zelda was on the landing. She hoped that the one too many tumblers of whiskey had not made her hands shaky. Lilith needed this to work.

“Zelda, you want her dead as badly as Lucifer does. Don’t be ridiculous.” It was Faustus’ voice that came through then. His talon like nails pressed into Lilith’s skin about her neck, but his eyes – Faustus’ – eyes had gone wide.

Zelda’s stern voice was cold. “I’m not sure I’m the one being ridiculous now. Though, I do think I have a solution for how we might be able to separate you from Lucifer. And, if we’re being honest with one another, I think it’s you who I’d like to see dead more than her.”

“Zelda, don’t…”

The shotgun fired. Lilith held her breath, watched as Faustus’ eyes widened. His hands did not relent from her throat. He held tight, tighter yet right before she felt a pool of warmness soaking into her dress.

Another dress ruined.

Zelda was a good shot. Even two sheets to the wind.

His hands shook, fingers finally releasing from about her neck until his body lay limp atop her.

Zelda was standing above her, smoking gun slung against her shoulder. “Now you know how I felt.” And with one stocking clad foot, she pushed Faustus’ shoulder and they watched his body collapse into a crumpled pile of messy blood and flesh at the bottom of the staircase.

They both stared, watching, waiting.

Lilith crawled up into a seated position.

“You know,” Zelda spoke. “I never wanted you dead.”

Lilith lightly patted her leg from her awkward position on the stairs. “I know that.”

And then the floorboards rattled beneath them and in an instant Lucifer appeared. All abs and hair and sexiness and youth.

He smiled at the two women. “I hope you didn’t think it would be so easy to rid yourself of me.”

Lilith rolled her eyes. “A mere mortal gun could hardly pierce you, my Dark Lord.”

And Lucifer seemed pleased at this.

Zelda held out her hand, helped Lilith up from the ground.

“I’ve got it from here.” Lilith clasped Zelda’s fingers tightly, reassuringly, and then before Lucifer could attack either she twisted her wrist and the world went dark about them. 


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Dust kicked up in the wind, swirled around the desolate area. It was barren, broken.

The sun gleamed down upon them. Brightly.

They stood in the shade of a remaining structure, decrepit as it was. The hint of a small pool remained in the ground, filled with fallen brush and hints of rainwater.

It appeared before her again, its grandiosity remembered in her mind. The nights she’d spent with her lovely women in waiting, the joy that had once permeated her creation.

Now it was nothing more than ruins laid bare to the elements.

Lilith held to a post that was still rooted in the ground, delighting in the sight of the river that still flowed to the right and behind her she knew there would be the cave from which she emerged again and again.

Lucifer squinted in the sunlight. Neither accustomed to such brightness. Greendale was so very heavily wooded and dreary 80% of the year. Lilith had come to appreciate is glumness.

“Do you remember it?” Lilith inquired as she twirled around the pole to stare at all four corners of what had once been hers.

Lucifer was watching her.

She came to face him yet again.

“Why have you brought us here?”

Lilith smiled. “It all began here, didn’t it? I humiliated you and you exacted your revenge. You took my life from me.”

Lucifer smiled at this. “I did not take your life. You willingly signed your name over to me.”

“Willingly. Well, we shouldn’t argue semantics, now should we?”

“I created greatness in you. I showed you how to rule; I taught you what it was to be powerful.”

Lilith laughed. “Did you? I rather believe that I knew all of that before. But what’s the point in arguing over every little detail of what may or may not have happened.”

Lucifer crossed his arms, thrown off by her blatant lack of fear. “I could kill you now.”

Lilith smiled again, sat down at the edge of her pool. “I suppose you could.” She let her toe slip to the dirty bottom of it and pressed her foot against the watery dust. And slowly the filth shifted away and in its place sprung up delicious, clear waters that filled in the holes of the cracked basin until it had been restored to its former glory as a pool in which to escape the heat of the day.

Lucifer watched, intrigued by this. “What is this? Some kind of a show before you attempt to kill me?”

“Attempt? Yet another word I think we should not argue about just now.” Lilith let her foot skim through the crystal-clear water creating ripples.

She felt his hand tangle dangerously, roughly in her hair. Forcibly he jerked her head backwards, making her look up at him. “What is this?” He brandished a knife that went to her neck.

Lilith smiled. “Let us not get carried away so quickly.” And her finger came to meet the pointed end of the knife and she pushed it away from her throat. Lucifer loosened his grip. “After all, aren’t you a little bit curious to know just how it might be that I can defeat you?”

Lucifer laughed at this. “Yes, I certainly would be thrilled to know just how you might plan to do that. I am invincible and you know it. You know it better than anyone else.”

“Perhaps.” Lilith nodded.

Lucifer looked as if he might punch her, shove her head against the edge of the pool, but instead his tensed facial features evened out into a smile. “And how might you?”

Lilith smiled pleasantly. “What was your plan with Sabrina? Hmm? She’s a half-wit, half-witch thing. Who presumed herself worthier of the throne of hell than me. But she’s not what you expected, is she?”

Lucifer laughed. “Why must I tell you anything about that? It does not concern you.”

Lilith half-smiled. “Yes, of course. You wouldn’t want to give me the full truth, would you?”

Lucifer ran his finger over the blade of his knife and half laughed at this. He sat at the edge of the pool and looked out across the vast dessert about them. Then his eyes landed on Lilith. “I needn’t explain myself. But you, however…you defied me.” The tip of the knife came to rest cold and metallic against her leg. He pressed, drew blood, slid it down until he’d created a red, angry cut down her thigh.

“You’re losing power.” Lilith spoke as she watched the blood bubble to the surface of the wound.

Lucifer laughed at this. “I’m about to be more powerful than you could ever be.”

The blood slid from the cut, slipped into the watery pool.

Lilith took a deep breath and looked to the sky. “Nothing changed because of Greendale and Sabrina. I’ve always wanted to kill you. To take from you what you took from me. I used to think I would want to rule as you did, to have the power and prestige of Hell under my command. But when you were trapped inside of young Nicholas, I realized a few things.”

“That you wanted to show off for that dreadfully ancient witch who fancies herself capable of acting as a High Priestess? Zelda Spellman has always been a wild card who needed to bow to me. If only I could have gotten to her the night before she married Faustus…well, perhaps a good man would not have just perished.”

Lilith was strangling him before she knew just what it was she was doing. They wrestled; Lucifer momentarily surprised enough to drop his sword so that they merely rolled together. Lucifer roughly grasping at Lilith, Lilith punching at him until she was atop him, pressing her fingers into his neck as painfully as possible. Her eye hurt where he’d shoved his palm into her face.

He was laughing beneath her.

She loosened her grasp and sat back, removing herself from him.

“Found your weak spot, didn’t I?” Lucifer sat up on his elbows, pleased with himself.

“You will leave her and her coven out of this. They have already suffered enough at the hands of that incompetent man who just died.”

Lucifer was still smiling. “Faustus served me devotedly.”

“Does he know just where it is that you receive your power from?” Lilith smiled, reached for the shiny, bloody knife off the ground.

Lucifer watched her brandish it.

She felt the blood from the cut he’d made trickling down her leg.

“You’ll never find it.”

Lilith smiled. “Oh, I have my ways.” And she toyed with the knife as the sound of wings approached. Closer and closer until the birds were upon her.

Two of them flew near and deposited into her hands the large, mortal-skin bound book, the knife flattened for a moment against her hand.

Lucifer regarded the book. A smile formed on his lips.

“If you destroy that book nothing will happen.”

“And why is that?” Lilith held it precariously.

Lucifer smirked. “The real one is hidden in a place that only I know of. That is but a decoy.”

Lilith nodded, flipped the heavy thing open and leafed through the cleverly, perfectly copied pages. The fabricated blood signatures that appeared each time a new person signed the real book. “Yes, I suppose that is true.” And she turned the page in time to see Zelda Spellman’s name scrawled out. The perfect flourish of a Z, the curl of the S, an uncertain waiver in the final “-lman”. Her hand had shaken when she’d signed.

Lilith had seen. Had tried to push her away.

Zelda had defied her, afraid.

Lilith had encouraged Sabrina because she did not show the same aptitude that Zelda had. The same ferocious, intellect that signified a mark of greatness that had been stifled by her womanhood.

Lilith had encouraged Sabrina because she knew she could get to Zelda, she could upset the delicate balance of it all if only Sabrina were to start things, to believe that it was truly she who had mattered…when she barely did in the grand scheme of things.

Her finger had fallen to press against Zelda’s name.

Lucifer watched her. “Waxing poetic over her yet again? But she doesn’t love you. She hardly even cares for you.” He huffed.

Lilith rolled her eyes. Shut the book and tossed it into the pool.

They both watched it sink to the bottom, the skin of it loosening, disintegrating around the edges.

“Is this your brilliant plan? To erase the names?” Lucifer was circling about her.

Lilith was holding the knife.

The birds were swooping around in intricate patterns above them.

“I’ve always been more powerful than you.” Lilith sighed. “You took power and magic from everyone and claimed that what they had was because of you. But as soon as their blood hit the holy book their life was taken from them. As mine was without knowing. I thought I was doing good by aligning with you…I had no idea how insidious you were.”

“Am I not Lucifer?”

“Oh yes, the all-powerful Dark Lord who preys upon the people in order that they should bow to him, to exalt him. So, you may rule with fear and a stern hand in order that they should stay in line and filter their powers to you. But that’s all about to end.”

Lucifer laughed. “You don’t have the book, so I don’t see how…”

Lilith smiled, noticed a patch of flowers springing up. Life was slowly returning to the land that had been so desolate and barren for so long. If she had wanted to, she could have willed the entire palace to be resurrected, but it would feel hollow without the women she had once shared it with.

She held up the knife and stepped towards Lucifer. “You were quite beautiful as a woman. It’s a shame it was only a glamour.”

Lucifer frowned, not accustomed to being thrown off in such a way.

She let the blade of the knife touch at the skin above his heart. She could almost feel it beating in his chest. So very human for one who was immortal and a God. He was supposed to be impenetrable and yet he did not fight her when she shoved the knife that much further into his skin, evoking blood.

“You can’t harm me.”

And she shoved at him, pushed him from the steps of her once palace and with the blade of the knife piercing his flesh, she shoved him down to the shores of her river. “My darlings located the book. It was not so difficult to find as you might like to think.” And she pulled out the knife and turned him to look upon the sparkling, glistening river water as it calmly raced by. “They have already deposited it into the water. The names have been washing clean away. The blood comes out in cool water, as you may know, and once those enchanted pages have lost their blood bonds, it seems that you, too, will lose those ties that give you any sort of strength.”

And she reached for Lucifer. His skin had lost its youthful sheen. It seemed pale and limpid in the sunlight now, his eyes sunken, tired.

Anger flashed, brightly in his eyes. Such anger and he leapt for her, grasped at her, tangled and tumbled with her, smashing her head against the ground, the knife lost for a moment and then reached for and the edge of it pressed into her flesh, into his flesh until his arms grew too tired, too weak and Lilith rolled over a sad lump of a man, so aged and old and lifeless.

It seemed cruel; what it was she knew she needed to do. But she held the knife to his chest, and he allowed it. He allowed the blade to enter his upper ribcage and she pierced his heart with surgical precision.

She pulled out the knife and his body came up with the motion and then sunk, dead and listless, back to the earth.

The birds circled overhead.

He was finished.

She stared at his face, at blood that had teamed and pooled out the side of his mouth, his dark, black eyes that stared up at her. She looked until she could look no more.

And then she got up. She brushed herself off, bruised and bloody as she was, and she shoved his lifeless body into the rolling river. It floated for a moment before sinking. Down and down until she could see him no more and the current pulled him away, tearing him into pieces, his essence disintegrating into nothing.

She screamed. She screamed in frustration, in anger that she had never released before and the knife went flying into the water. Far away from her.

Because she never wanted to rule in such a way that blood should be exacted in order to maintain power.

She had killed him. They had killed Faustus.

And yet, she longed for no more death.

And as she collapsed on the bank of the river, she felt her power return. In full force. White, lightness overcame her.

A tear slid down her cheek.

The birds circled.

Her homeland was dead by Lucifer’s hand and that could not be reversed. She could not bring it back, nor was she certain she wanted to. Only the patches of flowers and the possibility of reviving crops, but this…this area was no more. The world had extended past all of this and she knew she must return to Greendale.

She did not yet know what ramifications this would have on the world at large. So much was taken from so many. Free from the Dark Lord and his horrible reign people would be of and for themselves now. There was no God or Satan to blame something on. Neither existed now.

There was only humanity.

She rolled onto her back and stared up at the sky.

Her head hurt. Her body hurt. Her leg continued to bleed.

She was alive.

* * *

“Lilith?” The voice was delightful, rousing her from her slumber as it did. She almost thought she were dreaming it.

“She’s bleeding.”

“She’s still breathing.”

“Lilith, Lilith?” She felt hands at her shoulders, an attempt to rouse her.

And her eyes came open to stare into sparkly, deep green-blue eyes, red-hair that fell about a worried face.

“Lilith? Are you alright?”

Zelda.

Lilith lifted a bruised hand to wipe at her cut lip. She pulled her hand away to see blood smeared against the fine skin of Mary Wardwell’s body. Yet it felt more like her own body than it ever had before.

“What happened?” Zelda’s voice quivered with concern.

Lilith sputtered blood, sitting up so that she could turn and spit it into the grass beside her. She felt Zelda’s hand on her shoulder, noticed Marie standing not too far away. And apart from her was the real Mary Wardwell looking frightened and out of sorts.

“He’s dead.” Lilith sighed, falling back onto the earth. Her body was so tired. Her head was in pain.

Zelda’s eyes flashed wide. “You…but he…the Dark Lord is…”

“Dead.” Lilith finished her sentence.

“But I…” Zelda sat back on her heels. She lifted her hands, as if searching herself for some indication that this was true.

Lilith turned to face her, placed her hand lightly atop Zelda’s, grasping the skin tightly. “Zelda, they’re there. Inside of you. And they always have been.”

Zelda held her hand tightly.

Lilith felt the bruises on her arm subsiding, the pain lessening in Zelda’s grasp.

Zelda watched with wide, tear-stung eyes as Lilith’s arm healed before her.

Lightness enveloped Lilith’s head and she felt the pain from where Lucifer had smashed her against the ground recede. The tall trees around her came into view and she delighted in nature around them. She had landed in Hilda’s garden.

Hilda.

Lilith turned to Zelda. “Come.” Lilith sat straight up.

“But you’ve only just…” Zelda tried to lay her back down, but Lilith was quick. She stood and held out her hand for Zelda. Zelda took it, still protesting, as Lilith led them – Marie and Mary hot on their heels – as they moved to the front of the mortuary. Down to the cemetery.

To the recently dug plot.

They stood about it.

There was no sign of Hilda, but Lilith still felt her presence, knew she was down there.

“What…I…” Zelda was gasping, uncertain.

Lilith turned to her. She clasped her hands in hers and they knelt down together, knees hitting the ground in tandem and then Lilith was guiding Zelda’s hands to the soft, brown dirt.

Zelda wiped at her tears on the sleeve of her dress. “It won’t…it…can’t possibly…”

Lilith placed her hand on Zelda’s back, calming her.

And as they kneeled before the grave Lilith felt something come over Zelda. A sharp, shooting flare of natural magic welling up inside of her. The dirt seemed to glow in the waning sunlight, as if thousands of bits of glitter had fallen into it surface.

Zelda was silenced by the sensation of it.

They sat together, Lilith encouraging Zelda, Zelda touching the earth, until a hand shot up from beneath the ground and Zelda fell back, sobbing in tears. “Hilda…oh! Hilda.” And then she reached for the hand with brightly painted nails and clasped onto her. And in an instant Hilda, returned to her normal self, was unearthed and the sisters fell into each other’s arms. Holding one another, hugging, Zelda’s pretty dress ruined to the dirt and filth that Hilda brought with her, and yet it didn’t matter, and they kissed and clung to one another.

Lilith stood, coming to rest beside Marie.

Marie let her hand come to rest lightly at Lilith’s forehead. “You’re very badly injured, _ma biche_.”

Lilith felt lightheaded and allowed for Marie to place her arm about her as they both watched the sisters happily embracing one another before them.

Mary stood wide-eyed and awkward a few paces away. 


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Water was wrung from a warm towel by strong, dark hands.

Lilith could feel the cuts and bruises receding as she remembered health. The marks were fading from her skin but she wondered if they would ever truly disappear, if she might ever be able to truly forget it all. For how could she forget all of those years that had been stripped away from her? She had allowed the darkness to overtake her, to forget because perhaps it was easier to do.

It was easier to sink into despair instead of to stand in power.

Power came with its own set of issues. Power meant feigning strength and knowledge of what was right and what was just and the reliance of others who looked up to her.

Lucifer had given her an out, a way to slip into a subservient role and she wondered if she had not enjoyed the humiliation of it…

Had Zelda felt the same?

The warm washcloth was pressed to her lip. Delicious wide, dark eyes came into view as Marie tended to her. Marie worked with the precision of a doctor and Lilith knew she had mortal knowledge of healing and yet her touch was laced with its own brand of magic.

She cared for Lilith attentively and kindly. Doctor and patient. Nothing more and nothing less.

A silence hung between them and Lilith watched Marie’s eyes as she worked, observing Marie as she felt her cuts close up and heal themselves with the help of Marie’s ministrations. The pain behind her eyes lessened with each calming touch.

Lilith looked intently at Marie.

Marie’s wide eyes suddenly flashed to hers.

They looked at one another.

Lilith’s hand lifted, grasped about Marie’s bony wrist. She held her warm skin for a moment.

Marie’s brows furrowed for a brief moment. “What is it, _ma biche_?”

Lilith took a deep breath, pressed her swollen lips together and smiled. “I think you’re very good for Zelda just now.”

Marie had not expected this. Her hand came gently away from Lilith’s grasp and she returned the dirty, bloody cloth to the warm basin of water. “Why is that?”

“She’s been through so much in these past few months and I can tell that you bring her some comfort…some consolation.” Lilith watched Marie as she wrung out the cloth again and then turned to take Lilith’s arm and wipe it clean tenderly.

“I am pleased to bring her some peace.” Marie spoke.

“You care for her?” Lilith inquired, almost bashfully. For it had been ages since she had been shown any care, had had anyone to care for. She wondered if she had forgotten what care for another, for even herself, was. Lucifer had all but taken that from her.

“ _Mais bien sûr_. She is a lovely, strong woman who deserves some happiness.”

“I agree.” Lilith sighed and allowed for Marie to clean her other arm. Her body felt strangely light, powerful in ways it had not for years. Mary’s form was strong, angular, taut. It felt good to inhabit.

“I feel that she is drawn to you.” Marie spoke quietly as she turned away from Lilith. An admission.

Lilith perked up at this, for she knew that though they respected one another there was a tension between them because of this. Neither were truly willing to show their cards. But here was an admittance.

“She idolizes your power, she’s intoxicated by it.” Marie did not turn back to Lilith. “I feel that I should not be able to compete with such adoration.”

Lilith sat up at these words, soft as they were. “What are your plans with her?”

Marie turned back to her, puzzled. “I do hope that you would not think I have anything less than the purest of intentions when it comes to her. I do not wish to see her harmed.”

“Nor do I.” Lilith shot back.

Marie eyed her curiously. Lilith stared right back.

They seemed at a stalemate.

Lilith took a deep breath and pushed her legs over the side of the mortuary slab table. She felt so much more herself. “It seems to me that perhaps we both care for her. Very much. Though it appears that whatever it is she may feel for me, it is you who has her attentions and affections as of present. And you have helped her in ways that I have not…I could not…and so…”

Marie smiled ever so slightly. She let her hand come to rest atop Lilith’s. “Perhaps it should not be a competition. There is room for more than one, _n’est ce pas_?”

And Lilith felt a warmth race through her at the suggestion in Marie’s words. A mutual understanding, should Zelda so choose…

She pushed herself from the table, placed a hand briefly against Marie’s shoulder, looked into her eyes. A recognition and understanding passed between them.

Lilith turned away from Marie, healed.

“I need to speak with Mary.”

* * *

It was the calathea that she saw first upon entering into the attic room. It had grown in the last few days, its leaves strong and lush, thriving.

It was the scent of Mary that permeated the space, that calmed Lilith and reminded her of the time spent in the woman’s cottage. The scent of opening a closet and inhaling, of learning the woman through the little bits and pieces scattered about like puzzle pieces.

And there was Mary atop the mattress, arms wrapped about her legs, rocking back and forth, attempting to self-soothe.

Lilith implored for permission to come closer, to sit atop the bed. But she did not touch Mary.

“What’s happened?” Mary’s voice was soft, fearful. She did not understand the events that had just unfolded before her. Nothing made sense to her as it had that October evening of the previous year when the world had been predictable, mundane, knowable. It had all shifted, tilted into something unrecognizable and frightening.

Lilith supposed death might just have that affect. Perhaps she, herself, was too immune to the rebirth cycle – for she was _of_ nature and the world would birth her as many times as it needed. The cave gave her life.

The cave had given Mary new life, a chance to live again. But, like most, she was afraid because a world without rules was a frightening, chaotic world.

“I have defeated Lucifer. He derived his powers from those who were birthed of me. He took from their magic and became all-powerful in his own realm. I was blinded to it. I lost myself to him.” Lilith’s head fell forward as her fingers played with the knitted blanket that Hilda had brought for her the first night she had been given sanctuary at the Spellman Mortuary. “I have been _weak_ for years, ages. But I could not allow for Lucifer to consume the mortal realm as well. If he were to take of the mortal’s their lives and free will…”

“God would protect them.” Mary’s voice offered.

Lilith laughed, looked up at Mary. “You still believe that there is some _God_?”

Mary bit her lip, reconsidered her words. “But if there is evil in the world…doesn’t there have to be an opposing force? Someone who can fight against it?”

Lilith smiled. “Sometimes I wish I could see things so simplistically. That there is evil and that some good may overcome it. I truly would love to believe it.”

Mary frowned, adjusted her glasses on her face. “You…you overcame him. You killed him.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t make me good. But, nor does it make me bad.” Lilith ran a hand through her hair, met Mary’s eyes. “The world does not operate in such black and white understanding of thought. Nothing is ever good and nothing is ever bad. Ultimately, I think, it comes down to each one of us to decide.”

“How can I…” A tear caught in the corner of Mary’s eye and she had to push her glasses up to wipe at it roughly. “I was raised – a whole world of people even, apart from me! - was raised to believe in God and his salvation from sin. I was raised to put my faith, my trust, in Jesus, in the Bible and the Saints and God…I…”

Lilith nodded. “You are a learned woman, are you not? I am sure you studied the Gods who came before Christianity and monotheism.”

“Yes, but those were merely those civilizations’ attempts to explain things, they were not…” And Mary’s voice trailed off. She shook her head.

“I have been Lilitu, Hecate, Kali, Satrina, Raphi…among many, many others. Time passes…things change. Legends, ideas…they die out and we’re left again with a reality that neither has good nor evil yet is both.” Lilith’s hand came gingerly, carefully to rest at Mary’s warm sternum. “We are both.”

Mary’s eyes-widened at this contact, her body neither recoiling nor welcoming the touch, but there was something warm that passed between them. A certain kind of reassurance, a certain level of understanding.

“You will be fine with or without a God or a Jesus or whatever else it is to worship. Haven’t you forced yourself to suffer for long enough? To deny yourself what it is you want and to go against your natural grain?”

A tear slid down Mary’s cheek.

Lilith slid closer to her, leaned in to press her lips to Mary’s cheek to kiss away the salty, human tears. “Isn’t it time to live?”

“What if I can’t?” Mary gasped, eyes closed.

“I’ll help you.” Lilith whispered, let her arms circle about Mary so that Mary’s world could collapse, break apart, and destruct in her arms.

Mary cried in confusion and hurt. She allowed Lilith to hold her. To console her.

She cried until she stilled in Lilith’s arms – too exhausted to cry more.

“There, there.” Lilith pressed her lips to Mary’s forehead.

Mary exhaled shakily.

They stared at the calathea in the window together. It seemed even larger than before.

“I have something for you.” Lilith whispered into Mary’s hair.

Mary pulled back slightly, frowned at Lilith through blurry, tear-stained eyes, her face runny and red. “What?”

“Come with me.” Lilith stood from the bed and held out her hand to Mary.

Mary adjusted her glasses and slowly extended her hand for Lilith. And as their fingers met the air about them shifted. A wind kicked up and they found themselves suddenly before Mary’s cottage.

The sun was slowly setting in the trees about them, casting a golden light upon the cottage that looked so very warm and welcoming.

Mary glanced curiously at Lilith.

“Come on.” Lilith tugged at her hand, moved towards the front door. The door came open and the scent of a pot roast cooking in the kitchen rose to greet them. There were lights on, a few candles flickered about the room, a fire burned in the hearth.

Mary clung to Lilith. “Someone is here.” She whispered, frightened.

Lilith smiled again, put her arm about Mary when they both heard something clatter and clang in the kitchen.

“Mary? Mary…is that you?” A voice called out.

A voice that made Mary’s body tense at Lilith’s side, the woman frozen in her half-embrace.

And then _he_ appeared around the corner. Hands encased in oven-mitts, carrying a casserole dish in his hands, a sweet smile stretching across his handsome face in greeting until he fully grasped the image before him and then his look turned into a bit of confusion. He settled the dish atop the table and removed the mitts.

“What…what is this?” He looked from one woman to the other, his easy smile not fading however.

Mary’s body shook with tears. “Adam?” She cupped her hands over her mouth in shock.

Lilith nudged her forwards, pushed her towards the man.

“Yes…of course! Who else?” He cried, his eyes knowing Mary – welcoming her.

“Adam! But I thought…but you…” Mary stumbled to him and he wrapped her up in his arms.

“I was in Tibet but they gave me some leave and I wanted to come and see you.” Adam eyed Lilith as he held Mary in his embrace. “What’s going on here?”

“Oh, Adam!” Mary exclaimed, feeling returning to her body as she leaned up to kiss him. “Adam! You’re here…you’re…you’re really here?!” She kissed him again and looked to Lilith for a moment and then back to Adam. “He is really here?”

“Yes, yes. Adam has returned.” Lilith reassured Mary with a tender hand to her back and then she looked to Adam, who was watching them curiously. “And I do feel that we have not properly met. Well, not formally anyway. I am Lilith.” She extended her hand to him. Though it felt all so very formal for how well it was she truly knew him.

He frowned, pulled Mary close to him and took Lilith’s hand curiously. “Lilith. But you look so very much like…”

“Mary? Yes, you might think we were twins.” Lilith laughed, knowing she had much to tell him. “I would very much like to explain it all to you. It will all sound rather strange and I’m not sure…well, but you do deserve to know. It may take a while though, so…”

Adam’s brow creased before a curious smile crept into the corner of his eyes. “Well, if it’s alright with Mary…why don’t you join us for dinner?”

Lilith looked to Mary whose eyes begged of her to stay, to put some sense to this strange situation. “Alright, yes…it smells wonderful, whatever it is you’ve made. Thank you.” And she realized she was starving after all that had just transpired. And not for human flesh, but for the food that Adam had made.

Adam smiled amicably though he was still confused. “Let me just set another place. Everything’s ready.”

He disappeared into the kitchen and Mary looked at Lilith.

Lilith smiled reassuringly. “Adam is a good man.”

Mary nodded, astonished and overwhelmed. “Yes, yes he is.”

* * *

She explained everything. Every last detail for Adam to know. He did not at first like it, could not understand. Lilith knew it would take time to accept – for he and Mary shared a similar faith as if it were the thread that bound them together. And Lilith could understand that it would be quite a shock to find that both he and Mary had been killed and resurrected, so very sacrilegiously, together.

But Lilith made them tea, rummaged about for some almond cookies she knew Mary would have, and then they gathered by the fire. Lilith watched as Adam and Mary looked at one another as they sat together on the couch. It felt as if she were looking at the other for the first time. With eyes wide opened. With a new appreciation towards their relationship, a new understanding, shared journeys, new meanings…

She had done her duty. She had placed them back together where they belonged.

And Mary rested her head against Adam’s shoulder and looked at Lilith gratefully. Warmly.

Lilith enjoyed the sight of it. Felt herself warm to them, to the knowledge of what that kind man was capable of, of what he could show to the real Mary Wardwell.

And she felt Adam’s eyes on her as well. Bewildered by it. Because they shared knowledge of what it was they knew of the other and she knew that he knew and she knew that he knew in return.

Lilith sipped the last of her tea and settled the cup against its saucer. “Perhaps, I should be going.” She moved forward in her seat to get up. “I hope I have helped to make some amends.”

Mary stood when Lilith stood and moved with her towards the door. She caught her hand. Lilith’s fingers pressed Mary’s in her palm. She lifted the delicate hand that mirrored her own and pressed her lips gently to the back of it. Cordially. Familiarly.

“Thank you.” Mary smiled at her.

Lilith smiled, nodded, and then disappeared from the room.

She landed in the Spellman’s’ front parlor feeling strangely flushed and heated. She had enjoyed and admired herself doubled with Adam.

“Lilith?” A voice called out to her though it was late. Nearing midnight and yet the voice came to her…

A slight smile curled at Lilith’s lips upon hearing the voice.

“Lilith, is that you?” And Zelda appeared in the doorway of the sitting room, eyes tinged a bit pink from her nightly whiskey, cigarette held crassly in its holder about her finger, a trail of smoke swirling about her. 


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

There was something in her eyes, something akin to a wild, feverish awe, an admiration that had been absent for the past few weeks of Lilith’s stay at the Mortuary. Her pupils were dilated and Lilith could not be certain how much of that was from whatever it was Zelda had imbibed in that evening or if it were something else. For her nipples were pressing hard against the satin of her nightgown, her silk robe helplessly falling off her shoulders, her skin flushed and warmed and seemed freshly fucked but restless and wanting.

Zelda’s face lit up when Lilith’s eyes came to rest upon her. “Come…come here.” She held out an unsteady hand for Lilith.

Lilith squinted, moved forward cautiously. For she half-expected to find Marie or Hilda or some other house guest lingering about in the parlor with her intoxicated redhead. But as she came nearer to the sitting room, she realized it was only the fire and an evening newspaper and a half-drunk tumbler of whiskey and the record player swirling about at the center of the record noiselessly that were keeping Zelda occupied.

Lilith did not take Zelda’s hand. Instead she lifted the needle and watched as the record spun to stillness.

Zelda was near to her. “I waited all evening for you to return…I…Lilith…” Zelda spoke breathlessly.

Lilith turned, pressing herself up against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest. She met Zelda’s darkened, hooded eyes.

“Lilith…” Zelda whispered, a happy smile pulling at her stained lips. Her lipstick had somewhat faded, seemed a bit smeared from her day’s activities. There had been a reunion with Hilda, the scent of Marie lingered… “Lilith, you’ve saved us. You’ve…you gave us back our powers...my Hildie…” And Zelda was advancing on her, fell just a bit forward so that her body crashed against Lilith’s. Lilith had to reach out to hold her.

Zelda lifted her cigarette to her lips and inhaled as her hand came to rest at Lilith’s waist. Her fingers ghosted over Lilith’s dress, dug into her flesh ever so.

Lilith felt her lips spread into a smile as Zelda’s eyes fluttered from her eyes to her lips and then back to eyes.

“And yet…not even a week ago you wanted nothing to do with me.” Lilith smiled.

“That’s not…! That’s not…true.” Zelda huffed, her body straightening, irritably puffing at her cigarette.

“I do, quite clearly, remember you wishing to cast me out into the night instead of giving me sanctuary because I was…what did you say? Oh, something about unpredictable, unreliable, a wild card…” Lilith needled, a bit pleased to find that she could so easily get under Zelda’s skin.

“I didn’t…I didn’t know…” Zelda grasped and then fell away from Lilith, moved to extinguish her cigarette, to pick up her tumbler to drain the last of the whiskey with a shaky hand. “How was I to know, to trust after everything…”

Lilith rolled her eyes, pushed herself away from the wall.

She lifted her hand, curious to know just what porcelain skin might feel like beneath her fingers. She swept her pinky finger over the exposed spans of skin at Zelda’s shoulder.

Zelda shuddered, stepped away from her.

“And you shouldn’t have. I cannot blame you for not trusting me.” Lilith spoke, her hand dropping to her side.

She could see Zelda’s brow wrinkle in the light of the fireplace.

“It was the right instinct, Zelda. To not trust in me.”

Zelda turned to her, bewildered, red-eyed.

They looked at one another.

Zelda was glorious like this. A wonderful walking contradiction. Torn apart, her guard torn down, confused, angered, upset, in heat, wanting, frustrated….

“What were you trying to do just then?” Lilith asked, tilted her head to the side.

Zelda bit her lips, raised her eyebrows. Her hands opened at her sides.

“You’ve only ever known praise and adoration for a power higher than yourself, haven’t you?” Lilith advanced upon her, reached to take one of her hands in her own. Their fingers fought, played together for a moment. “But, Zelda, I don’t want to be worshiped. Not like this…”

Zelda’s cheeks colored.

Lilith tugged and their bodies came closer together. Her lips ghosted at Zelda’s. “I want you to worship yourself.”

Zelda shook her head. “But I…I haven’t…no…you…it was…”

Lilith lifted Zelda’s hand between their lips, kissed at the back of her palm. “You’ve forgotten yourself, Zelda.”

Zelda sighed at the contact, at the nearness, the dizzying turn of events.

“Perhaps I should make a pot of tea and sober you up a bit.” Lilith stepped away and Zelda whimpered as their hands came apart. “It won’t do, Zelda, darling, to drink yourself silly like this. The coven needs you now more than ever.” Lilith spoke as she moved away from Zelda.

Zelda, whose legs wobbled so that she sat upon the chair before the fire and lighted herself another cigarette.

Lilith mindfully made the tea. Boiling a pot of water on the stove. Pulling down the cups. Rummaging about in Hilda’s finely curated cabinet of herbal blends. Concocting something to soothe Zelda’s liver, the toxins floating about in her system, to sober her up. She added a hint of magic to the mix. She poured the water over the tea leaves in a pot. She brought the finely arranged tray to the sitting room and placed it between herself and the slouching Zelda.

Zelda stubbed out her cigarette.

Lilith poured tea into each cup with exacting precision and handed one to Zelda and took the other for herself, settling back against the couch.

She watched Zelda blow across the top of the steamy porcelain mug.

“You needn’t be strong with me, Zelda.” Lilith whispered.

Zelda bristled at this, so ready and programmed to not trust.

Lilith recognized this. Acknowledged it. 

Zelda sipped the tea and let her head roll back, eyes slipping closed for a moment.

They sat in silence. Lilith watching as a multitude of thoughts passed through Zelda’s mind.

Lilith waited.

Zelda’s eyes came opened again; the whites of her eyes clear. She seemed present to the room, to Lilith, to the world around her. “What is it you want me to say? Hmm? That I can’t stop…” Zelda sighed, “that I can’t stop remembering how it felt, that I crave the feeling of the whip at his hands, and yet my body is still in pain…and I want to self-harm, to escape, to feel something…I learned to suffer at my father’s hands. I wanted and wanted but was always pushed aside, belittled, placed behind Edward and Edward’s brilliance and what was best for the coven. A witch like me could never truly be the High Priest, it wouldn’t be…” her voice broke and she wiped at her cheek irritably.

“And why should I be? I was incapable…I let it all collapse…and Sabrina…” Zelda rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “I should have protected her more, but she slipped…slipped through my fingers. She didn’t need me anymore. I was irrelevant to her and her quests…” Zelda sadly smiled. “She was such a lovely child and now…” She shook her head. “She doesn’t need me. And you…” Zelda pointed her finger accusingly. It did not shake. “You undermined me at every turn. She ran to you…she… she asked you for advice, she went to you….” Zelda let her hand drop tiredly to her lap. Resignedly.

“She hardly even comes home now. At least Hilda…at least Hilda always came back…but she almost didn’t this time…and she’s slipping away from me, what with her precious little Dr. Cee.” Zelda sniffed in disgust at the mention of his name. “Of course, I want her to be happy, but I…

Her eyes slid shut again. “At least when Marie touches me I feel something.”

Lilith looked down into her tea.

Lilith knew what it was to be cast aside. Lilith knew what it was to want, to long, to fall short, to fail, to give in, to long for someone to care for her, to choose her, to want her. She knew.

Zelda looked at her expectantly, fearfully. Her body drained from her admission, her confession, her moment of vulnerability. She looked a bit as if she might be sick.

“Zelda,” Lilith sat forward and placed her teacup on the tray before her. “It’s good that you’ve said this.”

Zelda shook her head.

“It’s no longer all trapped inside of you.”

“No, I feel foolish…you must think…”

“That you’re strong? That you’re more than capable? That you have experienced suffering and pain just like the rest of us?” Lilith’s knees found the soft plush rug on the floor. “Zelda.” She let her hands come to rest on Zelda’s knees. “Isn’t it time to adore yourself for what it is you have gone through? Don’t you think it’s time to acknowledge what it is you have inside of you?”

“Adore myself?” Zelda laughed at this. “Don’t you see how dreadfully broken I am?”

Lilith leaned up on her knees and let her hand come to rest at Zelda’s wet cheek. Her thumb stroked over her skin. “As we all are. We all break at some point and then we’re never the same.” 

Zelda balked at this, turned her face away from Lilith. She balled her hand into a fist, pressed it hard against her lips. Tears slid down her cheeks and Lilith watched her cry. Knowing that it was now not only for herself that she cried, but for Lilith – for all of them. The tears came hot and heavy and unprettily distorted her face. Zelda covered her eyes, ashamed.

“Shh.” Lilith sat up, took Zelda into her arms and held her, rubbing a hand over her warm back and Zelda cried against her chest, the tears and make-up soaking into Lilith’s dress front and it didn’t matter. She ran her fingers through Zelda’s hair, held her pressed against her until Zelda could cry no more.

“Listen to me.” Lilith whispered.

Zelda sniffled, let her arms come about Lilith’s sides, clinging to her.

“Listen, I cannot promise you that things will get better. We have defeated Lucifer, but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be more problems. There is a whole world out there filled with hidden surprises. Some horrible, some wonderful... You understand?”

And Zelda nodded in understanding.

“I can’t tell you that no one will ever leave, I can’t tell you that you won’t want to hurt yourself again, that you won’t feel more pain and hurt and disappointment…but as long as you don’t abandon yourself…if you can remember yourself, Zelda, that’s all you need. That little bit of strength that I know you have inside of you. I watched you bring Hilda back. That was you, Zelda. It’s always been within you.”

Zelda all but collapsed into Lilith. As if a sudden weight had dropped from her body. She felt light, buoyant against Lilith.

“You suffered by Faustus’ hand, yet you found solace in Marie’s arms. You had to stay open to that, to the possibility of something more beautiful and for that, Zelda, you were brave.” Lilith spoke soothingly to the quiet woman in her arms.

“I care for her. Very much.” Zelda’s voice was near a whisper as it reverberated against Lilith’s chest.

“She cares for you. The way that you deserve, the way you should have always been cared for...”

Zelda sniffled, her fingers tangled into Lilith’s hair. She pulled gently, mindlessly at the strands. “I…I’ve always… cared for you. In the scriptures in…I had always hoped that you might…Lilith, I want…”

And Lilith knew. Felt her own heart – Mary’s heart now very much her own – pulsing strongly in her chest.

Zelda pressed a light kiss to Lilith’s arm where her face was pressed.

There was a silent acknowledgement of what this meant.

There was silence about them.

Lilith could feel Zelda’s breath ghosting against the skin of her arm. Lilith listened. She could hear Zelda’s heart beating, the clicking of the clock in the hallway as it kept time, the crackling of the fire, an owl in the distance.

Zelda came away from her. She cupped Lilith’s face in her hands.

Their eyes collided. It was painful to no longer hide from one another. For there was the hurt, the shame, the heartache, the fear fully displayed in eyes. Eyes that did not shy away from one another, eyes that were focused and attentive and alert to the other – present, being there in the emotions and feelings and remembrances that scattered wordlessly in their minds.

They saw one another. For all the ugliness and beauty that resided in each.

Zelda’s hand slid to Lilith’s neck, heads turned to accommodate, eyes wide-opened, lips finding lips, a gasp, the scrape of teeth, a whispered thanks, a consolation of the capriciousness that was life.

The flames rose higher in the fireplace.

The kisses became more wanton, more feverish.

Zelda’s skirt rose higher.

Lilith shoved her back into the chair and pushed her legs apart. “Let me worship you.” Lilith whispered, pressing a kiss to the inside of Zelda’s stocking clad thigh. 

Zelda sighed, allowed Lilith to press her fingers up into her skirt, to hook onto the pantyhose that encased her lower half. Zelda rose, allowed for the thin material to be pulled away from her, nude material peeled decadently down over her thighs, her knees, her calves and then Lilith discarded the hose unceremoniously, returning her hands to rake them up and down Zelda’s thighs until her skirt was about her waist and it was only the delicate black lace panties that separated Lilith from Zelda’s heat.

Lilith looked up to Zelda’s face from between her parted legs. Zelda looked wild and free and open. Her smeared lips parted, eyes watching, urging Lilith on.

Lilith smiled up at her as she leaned forward, inhaling Zelda’s arousal, her want. And her lips pressed against the lace material, right at the most sensitive place, bestowing a kiss upon Zelda.

Zelda whined, shifted ever closer to Lilith, wanting.

They were drawn to one another. Unfettered by restraints, but disappointments, and shortcomings. This was a leveling – two women acknowledging what it was that had happened to them. Their bodies healing one another with every touch with every twist and turn and kiss and caress.

And Zelda was glorious before Lilith, body sprawled out atop the chair, eyes closed, lip half-bitten, hands reaching for Lilith or relaxed above her head, leg thrown over Lilith’s shoulder, little whimpers and cries that escaped from cherry red lips.

Lilith took from Zelda. Zelda who had given her the strength to return to herself, to remember what had come before Lucifer. From the fall to her own civilization to the women she had worshipped.

Zelda’s toes curled in ecstasy, Lilith changed tactics keeping Zelda humming and strung out on just what it was she was capable of doing that she had been denied so long...

It was only a brief moment that Lilith noticed Zelda’s eyes slip open. There was a distant, momentarily distracted gaze, as if she’d seen someone a ways off.

And then Lilith knew.

Marie was watching.

Zelda held her closer, her eyes slipping shut as she shuddered, grasping at Lilith’s hair, unable to keep the cry at bay.

Zelda collapsed in a hazy stupor, fingers playing in Lilith’s hair as Lilith laid her head against her thigh, fingers soothing Zelda.

“Take me to your room.” Zelda whispered and Lilith knew that Marie had left them.

And Lilith did and they made love the rest of the night atop the uncomfortable, squeaky cot with the calathea as witness to their union.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Trigger warning for this chapter!*  
> Please note that in the third section of this story there is reference to self-harm.
> 
> If you would like to believe this story ends somewhat happily, I would suggest reading the first two sections and leaving out the last one. :) 
> 
> And please read the notes at the end!

Chapter 12

The calathea had grown larger.

Lilith regarded its pinkish-hued leaves with admiration in the morning light that shown in through the eastern-facing window.

Zelda was gone from her bed, but the smell of her clung to her sheets, to the room. Almost as if in commemoration. 

Lilith felt delightfully taut and perfectly sore.

She stood naked from the bed and moved to touch the plant, to feel its life pulsing through fleshy leaves. She peered out the window. Her eyes scanned over the tops of the trees that surrounded the Spellman property and she felt that it had changed, altered since she had arrived. The rains had brought new life. The earth was awakening to a new season.

Lilith slid into a little black slip and then reached for a sweater to haphazardly cover her arms.

The descent down through the Spellman home was quiet in the early light of morning. The house silently groaned about her.

She paused before a bedroom door. Acutely aware of its inhabitant.

There was a sound, perhaps the slight gasp of a sob, of some brief exhalation of pain, torment, or ecstasy.

The door was not shut properly.

A crack revealed itself. Lilith peered into the crevice and saw what she expected to see. Dark hands exploring milky-white skin, a redhead gone on lust as plump lips circled about a taut pink nipple, green-eyes hooded, another hand buried in sensitive flesh.

Those sharp eyes flashed fully open for the briefest of moments.

Eyes met. 

Lilith reached for the doorknob.

She pulled the door tightly closed.

She walked down the stairs, she walked to the front door, across the porch. There was the brush of fur against her ankle. She leaned down to pet Salem’s back. He arched into her touch. “Come for a walk with me.”

And he followed her out into the budding light of day.

She found a path that took them into the woods. Her bare feet snapped against twigs; toes dug into the dirt of the ground. The trees and foliage seemed to bend to her in reverence. The leaves shown brighter, greener.

There was a small stream that flowed crisp and clear, cutting through the forest. Salem bent his head to drink of the cool water and she stepped upon the slippery pebbles, watched as her feet were washed clean.

There was the sound of the light southern wind that whipped the trees, that blew across her ear like a lover.

Her eyes closed and she recalled the sensation of Zelda’s naked body spread atop her back, the way her lips had pressed against her neck, her breath warm against the shell of her ear when the redhead had fallen asleep atop her.

Lilith stood, feeling the sun upon her face. In the light her tired, aged bones felt supple, youthful. She was strong as she had not been in ages, centuries.

She had killed _him_. She had put him to death. She had taken back what was hers and somehow this triumph felt hollow, empty.

And she did not want to hold the world up, to support it all. She did not want to be the one that they relied upon because she was as imperfect as the rest of them.

The sweater slid down her arms. Her nipples hardened in the sunlight, pressed against the thin material of her slip.

Her eyes came open.

He was standing in a clearing.

Watching her. Intently.

She yanked the sweater up her arms, wrapped it about herself.

Salem meowed.

“It’s alright.” Lilith whispered to the cat. She splashed through the water, emerging on the other side of the creek. “What are you doing here?”

He looked like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He bowed his head, ran his fingers through his sandy-blonde hair.

“It’s, uh…it’s Mary…I…”

Lilith nodded. Understood. “Walk with me.”

He nodded, turned to stand beside her as they forayed further into the forest, the sun rising higher and higher. It would be warmer soon.

“She’s having trouble?” Lilith guessed.

He nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets and she could feel him regarding her, looking at her the way a man did when he was wanting.

“She won’t be the same as me.” Lilith stopped walking, turned to face him. “It was rotten, what I did. To the both of you. Don’t you see?”

“But I…I want to love her…”

“She loves you very much, Adam.” Lilith crossed her arms over her chest.

“But she’s not…”

Lilith shook her head. “She must learn.”

Adam kicked at the dirt beneath his shoe. “She doesn’t want to.”

Lilith rolled her eyes to the sky. “She’s been oppressed her entire life, Adam. She has been taught from a young age to deny the wants and needs of her body. She doesn’t know what it is to receive pleasure…to experience it…”

“She doesn’t want me to touch her.” His voice came from clinched teeth.

Lilith looked at him. “What do you want from me?”

He looked at her.

She shook her head. “You must be patient.”

“We’ve been together for fifteen years, Lilith. I think a man’s patience can run a little thin.”

Lilith smirked. “As if you have not taken other lovers in that time.”

His cheeks colored at the implication.

“It’s perfectly normal, natural even.” Lilith curled her hair about her finger.

“Can’t you…”

Lilith’s eyebrow rose. “What?”

He looked at her with such longing in his eyes.

She understood and did not want to understand. “She must do it for herself before she can do it for you. Go home to her. Encourage her to do it for herself, you understand? Give her space, give her time and take care of what you must the way you must so that you do not pressure her until she is ready.”

He listened to her.

They looked at one another.

His feet shifted forward as if he might just come towards her. But she stepped back.

“Go home to Mary. I am not her.”

Adam nodded slowly. He shifted away from her. His hands returned to his pockets.

He turned from her and began to move away.

She watched him walk away from her, disappearing into the woods, back from whence he had come.

She had done that. Or had Lucifer done that? Toyed with the lives of others…

And she felt it fracture in her chest, the pain of it. She had created a need within Adam and an expectation upon a woman who did not yet know herself. Because she had needed.

Adam was a good man. Adam was a kind man.

She knew he would wait for Mary – but would he think of Mary when he was allowed access to her?

How many others had there been that she had done this to so unwillingly? She loved Mary for the skin that she now inhabited. It made her ache for her.

Becoming flesh and blood made her weak.

She sneered at herself.

* * *

Marie was cooking in the kitchen when Lilith and Salem returned from their morning stroll.

Marie glanced up from making pancakes and smiled. “It’s a beautiful morning, is it not?”

Lilith, still lost to the woods and her strange morning, nodded distractedly. “Yes, I would say so.”

“I thought I might start breakfast since Hilda went to be with her Dr. Cee last night.” Marie explained as she happily puttered about the kitchen as if she belonged there.

Lilith reached for a piece of toast that sat on a plate, lifting a knife from a jar of jam to smear its sticky sweetness across the bread. Hungry, she bit into her creation. She looked at Marie. Marie who again wore one of Zelda’s nightgowns over her slender body. She was a tiny thing. Lilith was quite certain she could snap her like a twig, wondered just what it might feel like to roll around in bed with her the way Zelda did.

Lilith had grown somehow larger, sturdier in her time at the Spellman Mortuary.

“I think it’s good, what you did for Zelda.” Marie had felt Lilith’s eyes upon her.

Lilith’s eyebrow rose as she added to the jam upon her slice of toast. “Do you?”

“Why yes. I have sensed that she holds so much on the inside. I have tried to speak with her, to know what it is, but you…you were able to get her to talk.” Marie flipped a pancake.

Lilith added a final helping of jam to the last of her toast and finished it off, licking her fingers clean. Marie watched for a brief moment. She looked wise to Lilith. She was more amused than anything else.

Lilith studied Marie harder. “What is it that brought you to Greendale?”

Marie smiled at this question. “Prudence and Ambrose came to me in their quest for Faustus Blackwood.” She plated her perfectly made pancakes and began pouring more batter onto the skillet. “At night, Prudence would tell me stories of what had happened in Greendale, of the things Faustus Blackwood had done. Particularly to his bride. I suppose I wanted to see her for myself, knowing what it is to lose myself. I thought I could help…”

“You pitied her?” Lilith inquired as she spread peanut butter on another slice of toast, topping it with jam.

“ _Non_! I would never pity Zelda. I simply knew that there was a crisis and I felt compelled to offer my aid. I had not intended on falling for such a woman of _magnifique élégance_.” 

Lilith chewed her bread thoughtfully, still regarding Marie with intense focus. “What is it that you want from Zelda?”

Marie looked at Lilith. “Perhaps I might ask you the same question, _ma biche_.” 

They stared at one another.

“Or perhaps, you should let Zelda speak for herself.”

And Lilith startled when she felt a hand at her waist. The sigh of a delicate lily-white arm extended past her to reach for a muffin.

Lilith turned to find Zelda so very near to her. If Zelda were to turn her head ever so slightly their lips would brush…and the darling woman did just that. Her green-blue eyes searched Lilith’s before she leaned in to press their lips together in a morning kiss that tasted of mint and peanut butter and jelly.

Zelda’s hand came away from Lilith’s person as they parted, and she stepped away from her.

Marie was smiling at them when Lilith glanced at her. 

Zelda bit into her muffin as she rounded the kitchen island. Marie handed her a fresh cup of coffee before their lips found the other’s and they kissed in greeting. 

She stood away from both women, creating the top point of the triangle. “You wish to know what the other’s intention with me is, but what about my intentions for either of you?”

Lilith smiled, let her hip fall against the island. “What is it, then, that you would like, Zelda?”

Zelda smiled in turn. She sipped the coffee, turning to look out the kitchen window. She lifted the edge of the curtain with her fingers, pushing it apart to let more of the sun cast its light into the room. “I wanted, for years and years, to be high priestess. I thought my life would finally mean something if I could have that title. It was all that mattered to me and I…I pushed and forced and fought my way to that title. I married a man whom I did not love, who I found revolting, the things he did to me…the things I enjoyed that he did to me…and I felt I was broken. You see…I thought I had completely lost myself to this madness, to this need that I had inside of me…I thought that I would never be enough.”

Zelda turned to look at Marie. “And then you…you appeared and reminded me of who I once was…who I have always been. That what I had been fighting for didn’t matter as I had once thought it did…”

Zelda’s eyes flashed to Lilith. “And you…you gave me back my p-power. My…my belief and understanding of what I thought it would and _should_ be to be a witch. You…you did it, truly. You answered my prayers.” Her voice softened at the admission, eyes watered as she spoke.

Zelda moved to the kitchen table, extracting a cigarette from her box, fitting it into her holder while Marie and Lilith watched her, silently, appreciatively.

Zelda lit her cigarette, inhaled decadently. She looked more certain of herself, steadier down into her toes. There was a defiant tilt of her head, the upturn of her chin. “Now you ask me what it is I would like, and I must say that it is the both of you.” She lifted the cigarette to her lips again. “I no more wish to belong to anyone other than myself. I have no grand designs to marry again or to be subservient to another and I feel as if neither of you would ask that of me. So, I would like if we could have this out in the open, between us…” Zelda looked from Lilith to Marie. “If…you feel that that might please you both…that is…”

Marie looked from Zelda to Lilith. Lilith met Marie’s gaze.

Marie’s lips curled into a smile. “I believe it would be quite beautiful, _ma chère_ , to be a part of your life.”

Lilith’s gaze followed Marie’s back to Zelda. “Yes, I quite agree with Marie.”

Smoke curled from Zelda’s upturned lips. “Yes?”

“Besides, _ma belle chérie_ ,” Marie’s elegant shoulder shifted upwards. “I must return to New Orleans. I cannot stay here indefinitely. I have people whom I must tend to, who need what it is my store provides. I had not wished to leave you after what it is we have shared, but knowing that you have Lilith will ease my mind while I am away.”

Zelda’s brows had furrowed at this news. Her hand shook briefly where it held her cigarette. “You…you’re going away?”

“Not for long, _ma chérie_.” Marie moved to Zelda, clasping her hands in her own. She pressed her lips to Zelda’s knuckles. “Oh, no. Do not be sad. It will be for a short time and I shall return to you as I am able.”

Zelda bowed her head and nodded. “You’ll come back.”

Marie smiled, lifted her hand to Zelda’s cheek. “Of course, I will come back.”

Lilith watched as Zelda’s eyes filled with tears, as Marie cupped her cheeks and offered her a reassuring kiss.

* * *

The calathea looked nice in the corner of the bedroom.

It overflowed from its basket affixed to the ceiling, grew down and down in waves and torrents of colorful leaves.

Lilith liked the sight of it, enjoyed returning to the room each evening to see it so alive. It reminded her of what had grown inside of her. It flourished as she flourished, it did not falter and so she did not falter.

Things were at stasis. Sabrina had been released of her hellish duties, returned to her teenaged life. Dr. Cee had all but moved into the Spellman Mortuary. Hilda stayed near, close to her darling sister. Zelda triumphed dashingly at the academy as the head mistress and when Marie came to town she taught alternative classes there.

Lilith dealt with the world around them, fielded the ramifications of demolishing Lucifer, worked with demons who came for him, finished unfinished business. She grew a wildly large garden that stretched for miles and miles and miles. Filled with all species of plants and vegetation. It grew with each passing day. She breathed life into it, and it thrived.

Adam did not come to her again, but she had seen Mary. Mary looked contented.

Lilith was pleased but poised for the possibility that anything could happen at any moment and shatter the illusion. And that was life. That was what she had learned of life at any rate.

Night had fallen around them that day.

Lilith was sore from a demon who had attacked her that day. She was contented that evening, however, to be at the Spellman Mortuary. She wondered if this was the same feeling that one had when they went “home”.

She liked the sight of the calathea in the corner. She liked the idea of the bed upon which she slept with Zelda Spellman when Marie was in New Orleans. She liked, even, the idea of the bedroom that was still atop the stairs now filled with delectable pothos and snake plants. It was her haven away from it all, a place for herself that _belonged_ to her.

But this evening Marie was away, and this bedroom belonged to her and Zelda.

She could smell the hint of Zelda’s perfume, a whiff of her cigarette smoke. She was near, she should be nearby and yet Lilith did not see her in the bedroom proper.

The bathroom door sat ajar. Lilith could see the light on over the sink, casting a diffused yellow light over the room.

Lilith stepped forward, felt her pulse beating heavily in her neck, in her wrists.

There was the soft, milky skin of an exposed knee. The orange cream of a satin robe, red-tipped nails clasping tightly at the flesh of a thigh. Red hair fell over shoulders, head tilted to the ceiling, green eyes hidden away, closed.

Something metallic flashed in her hand.

Lilith’s brow creased as she pushed open the bathroom door.

A line of blood had formed on the delicate white flesh of a thigh.

Zelda looked up with fear in her eyes, a bloody blade clasped tightly in her hand, a cigarette burning in an ashtray balanced on the edge of the tub next to her.

Lilith surveyed the scene, looked from the blood to the white spans of skin to Zelda’s wide, dilated eyes.

She moved forward swiftly, took the blade from Zelda’s hand, flushed it down the toilet. She knelt before Zelda, watched as a tear trailed down her reddened cheek, her body shook when Lilith’s hands went to either thigh. Lilith lowered her head to press her tongue to the blood, to cover the cut with her mouth. Her magic twined with Zelda’s to heal the wound. So that all that remained was milky-white flesh.

Lilith sat back from Zelda, leaning back until her back met with sink cabinets.

Another tear trickled down Zelda’s cheek. She lifted the cigarette to her lips with an unsteady hand.

No, life was certainly not so straightforward.

“I was…I was doing so well…” Zelda wiped at her cheek angrily. “I hadn’t…and then…this day, this day felt like too much. The children weren’t listening, Sabrina hasn’t been home for days, she’s always off with her boyfriend and I…I…but I was doing so well…I…”

Lilith leaned forward, let her hand press against Zelda’s free hand. Their fingers found one another.

“I know.” Lilith whispered.

“Please don’t…don’t be angry with me…I…”

Lilith shook her head. “No. No, I’m not.” Lilith lifted Zelda’s hand to her lips and pressed kisses over her fingers.

“Please don’t tell Hilda or…or Marie…” Zelda whimpered.

Lilith eyed her. “You wanted to be found, Zelda. You wanted to be discovered, didn’t you?”

Zelda’s brow furrowed, angrily. “No. No, of course not.”

“Zelda.” Lilith held her gaze. “You may be able to heal the wounds yourself on the outside, but they linger inside of you. And those wounds…the ones on the inside are the hardest to heal. Doing this won’t make it easier. Do you understand Zelda?”

Zelda nodded tearily.

“Hilda and Marie will not be upset with you, nor will they make you feel ashamed for this. They all – even I - want to be here for you, darling. We _are_ here for you. Do you know that?”

“I know.” Zelda sighed, collapsing into Lilith. “I know it.” And she pressed her lips to Lilith’s neck. “I’m sorry…I’m…”

“Shh.” Lilith shushed her, wrapped her up in her arms and took her to the bed.

Zelda was strong and capable, until she was not.

Lilith held Zelda to her that evening, knowing that the battles were not yet over. The battles might never be fully won, but with each day they would flourish, they would grow. They would make mistakes, they would fall short, but they would fight for a way forward.

They would heal the best that they could.

* * *

**And in homage to Roberto's love of musical numbers, I give you what I imagine to be the final song that they might sing at the end of this revised season. Please find a Spotify link to Leonard Bernstein's "Make Our Garden Grow" from Candide[here](https://open.spotify.com/track/5cjCnvmtu0sCLpSfCxhWDF?si=ERbGiK0DRXuaL8yYL4lL-A).**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this story. My version of a fix-it for what we were left with after that horrible season three. I wanted to explain that while this may seem like a partial ending...it is an open-ended ending and it leaves the room for your imagination. These issues are not magically solved overnight and can take years to heal. These characters have been through so much and only now do they truly have the tools to begin to heal and grow for the better, just like Lilith's garden grows. 
> 
> It was only my intention to fix the few bits that you have already seen in the previous chapters. And so in the same style of Roberto, I am leaving you with a bit of a confused mess.


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